Somehow
by pluscuamperfecto
Summary: The Jaz they pull out of Iran is not the same one who went in.
1. Chapter 1

Part One

-o-o-

Lots of triggers in this one!

-o-o-

Jaz marks the passage of days by the tray of inedible food shoved between the bars of her cell.

She's long ago lost count of how many there have been. Now, it's just a way to know that the earth has rotated once again, that 24 hours have passed - and that she's still here.

Of course, they could be messing with her. They could be feeding her every twelve hours, or every 36, or maybe even on random intervals. Just to keep her head spinning.

It doesn't even matter anymore.

They'd stopped torturing her after two weeks - or maybe it was three. Those days are a blur in her memory. For several weeks after the beatings had stopped, a few of the guards had come down every night to...have their way with her. But even that has stopped.

For weeks now hasn't seen a single person, hasn't spoken to a soul. Days and nights have passed, alone, on the cold damp floor of this five foot by five foot concrete cell.

Sometimes she hears screaming. Sometimes heavy boots stride past, shadows in the darkness. But otherwise, there's nothing.

Sometimes she isn't even sure she's still alive.

They're keeping her as a bargaining chip. She knows they've sent photos of her battered, tortured body - proof of life. Knows they've demanded something - the release of Iranian terrorists maybe, or an end to the sanctions, or perhaps the resources they need to restart the country's nuclear program.

But she also knows the US government won't deal. Knows they probably haven't even acknowledged her existence, admitted that she's an American soldier on an official mission.

She isn't sure how she feels about that, after all she's gone through for her country. She wonders if they're talking about her back home, pointing to her miserable fate and saying, look! This is why women can't be in special forces!

If she had the energy, she might be upset by this.

But she doesn't. The only thing that still has the capacity to upset her - the only thing that's threatened to make her cry in these weeks or months or maybe years - is knowing that her team has seen those photos.

That Dalton has seen those photos.

But she tries not to think about that.

She tries not to think too much about her team. But it's hard, alone in her cell, with little else to focus on. She wonders if they've replaced her yet. Wonders if they've given up on her, accepted that she's not coming back.

Wonders if they've been able to move on, just like she did, eventually, after Elijah died in her arms.

She's never believed in heaven, or any kind of afterlife. But sometimes she thinks she can hear him talking to her. Sometimes she wonders if he's waiting for her. Over there.

Sometimes she wishes they'd just shoot her so she could find out already.

-o-o-

When Elijah had died, Dalton had mourned his friend and teammate. He'd felt angry, and guilty, and sad - and, finally, somewhat at peace.

He'd given a eulogy at his fallen friend's funeral. He'd hugged Elijah's parents, told his little brother to call him if he ever needed anything. He'd packed up his belongings and sent them home to his family, keeping only a photo of the team that had been taped to the wall above Elijah's bed.

He'd done four sessions with the Army shrink. He'd talked over what happened with Preach and McGuire and Jaz, who was closest to Elijah in more ways than one, and who took his death the hardest.

He'd recruited a new member. He'd rebuilt his team, one that missed and mourned and grew stronger.

He'd moved on.

He can't do that now.

There is no moving on, there is no moving forward. And all he can think about - all he can focus on - is getting Jaz back.

He failed her once, and look where it got her. Got them.

He will not do it again.

The team spends every minute of every day drilling for her rescue - training and brainstorming and preparing for every possible scenario, every eventuality. Dalton pushes himself harder than he ever has before, running and lifting and boxing and shooting. He knows the rest of them are doing the same, knows they're all struggling with the guilt and grief and anger.

But this time, he can't talk about it with any of them. This time, the burden of command weighs too heavily on his shoulders - it had been his call, his risk to take.

Except he'd been wrong, he'd been so wrong, and so _stupid,_ and he hadn't been the one to face the consequences. He's in his comfortable bed, eating Amir's gourmet meals and taking hot showers and drinking himself to sleep to numb the pain.

And she...

When he closes his eyes, all he sees are the photos the Revolutionary Guard had sent to the DIA. Jaz's bruised and bloodied face. The slashes and burns on her back. The marks covering her legs.

Her dull, pain-filled eyes.

He knows what happens to women in Iranian prisons.

-o-o-

She's been trained to withstand torture of course, but no one tells you that the training is nothing like the real thing.

That when it really happens, when you're alone and cold and scared and hurt in a dark cell three floors below an Iranian prison, you'll feel a piece of your soul breaking off and shattering into pieces.

She hasn't cried. Not through the beatings with an electric cable, not through the knife carving patterns into her flesh, and not through the seven fat, sweaty men taking their turns with her. Not through the weeks alone and shivering, waiting to die.

She thinks sometimes about Elijah's funeral. They'd all flown back to the States for it - back to rural Pennsylvania, where Elijah had grown up, and where his parents and three younger siblings still lived.

At the reception afterwards, she'd sat in the corner of Elijah's parents' living room by herself, uncomfortable in her dress uniform, holding a glass of iced tea and wishing it was something stronger. She'd watched Elijah's twelve year old sister chatting with a cousin.

"Soldiers know they could die," the cousin had said, chewing on a chocolate chip cookie. "My dad says it's a sacrifice they make to keep us safe."

"Elijah didn't want to die," his little sister said, her eyes puffy, her own cookie untouched on a napkin in her lap.

"Yeah, but he knew it could happen," the cousin had told her.

Jaz had walked away, unable to intervene, unable to keep listening. _He hadn't known it could happen!_ she'd wanted to scream. _None of us knew_!

She hadn't known this could happen. No matter how many times she'd been warned, no matter how many times she'd said she accepted the risk, that doing this was worth the risk…

She just hadn't known what the risk was.

-o-o-

He finds McGuire on the beach, early in the morning. The sun is just rising, warming the sand, gentle waves lapping against the shore.

He'd gone for a run, early, before the rest of the team was up - or so he'd thought.

He's tempted to turn around, pretend he hadn't seen him, but - he's the team leader. He needs to step up.

So he slows to a walk, and then drops down beside his medic, sand sticking to his sweaty legs.

"You're out early," McG says, his voice hoarse. Dalton wonders if he's been crying.

"So are you," Dalton says, rubbing the sleeve of his T-shirt over his sweaty forehead.

"Couldn't sleep."

Dalton nods. He gets that.

McG doesn't say anything else, and Dalton thinks about getting up, about going off to finish his run and start the day - he's got several training exercises planned, simulations for how they'll break into a heavily armed Iranian prison and emerge with Jaz.

He's about to make an excuse and leave when McGuire says, "I pushed her into it."

 _What?_ "What?" Dalton manages, nearly stunned into silence.

McG is still staring out at the water. "When we were in that room...I said it would be a shame to leave that fucker still alive. I thought she should do it. I pressured her. And it wasn't my ass on the line."

Dalton stares at him, unable to speak.

It was _my_ fault, he thinks. I'm the one who approved the mission. I'm the one who sent her in there.

But before he can swallow the lump in his throat, McG speaks again.

"I can't stop thinking about what's happening to her," he says, and now Dalton realizes that he really was crying. "What she must be going through, while we're just sitting around on our asses. _Waiting_."

He spits out _waiting_ like it's a dirty word.

Dalton knows he should say something, something comforting and reassuring and strong. Something befitting of a leader.

McG swipes the arm of his sweatshirt over his eyes, and Dalton nearly loses it.

"Me too," he manages finally. "Every single second of the day."

-o-o-

It's been a long time since they brought her out of her cell. But Jaz still isn't surprised when they fling the door open and a blinding light invades her senses.

"Get up!" one of the guards shouts in Farsi. There are at least five of them standing at the door.

In an action movie, one where Jaz is a superhero, she'd take all five guards out in a spectacular fight - one where they all ended up dead, and she walked away with barely a scratch. She'd grab the fat, sweaty one's gun - the one who liked to push her face into the floor while he raped her - and put a bullet in his temple, then shoot her way out of the prison, running triumphantly into the sunlight.

Instead, she's too weak to push herself off the concrete floor. Two guards seize her by the arms and drag her out, up a flight of steps, her shins bouncing painfully off the rock-hard stairs, and into the interrogation room that frequently appears in her nightmares.

They shove her into a chair. Yank off her torn T-shirt, leaving her in just a tattered, threadbare bra, and strap her into place.

A wave of panic crashes over her. Is she being executed? Is this it, right now?

Suddenly, pain ricochets through her entire body - once, twice, three times. She bites down on her tongue till she can taste the blood. She won't let them see her cry.

"We continue to hold this American spy," a voice says in heavily accented English from somewhere above her.

There's another flash of agony, another lash of a thick cable against her bare stomach.

"This spy has snuck into our country on false pretenses," the voice says. "She murdered an Iranian citizen, on Iranian soil, and has spread terror through our entire nation."

Jaz forces herself to open her eyes, to breathe slowly through the pain. She finds herself staring at a blinking camera.

 _They're recording this_. Or livestreaming.

She tries to open her mouth, tries to say something - she has no idea what - but it's been so long since she's spoken that she can't manage to make a sound.

Another lash.

"This is our final warning to the American government," the voice says, and she realizes it's coming from one of the guards - the one who always appeared to be in charge.

The only one who's never raped her. She's not sure what that means.

"This American spy will be executed by firing squad in 72 hours unless our demands are met."

Another lash. She jerks as the cable wraps around her ribs, can't help moaning quietly.

And suddenly, she's able to find her voice. "Don't do it," she croaks, so hoarse that the words are practically unintelligible to her ears. "Don't give them what they want! Don't do it!"

A sudden blow to her abdomen knocks the wind out of her, and suddenly fists and weapons are flying at her.

Her last thought before she passes out is that at least this will be over soon.

-o-o-

Dalton is midway through a set of twenty mountain sprints when his secure sat phone buzzes. He nearly tumbles to the gravel trying to get it out of his pocket.

A 911 from Patricia.

Heart pounding, he sprints back to their barracks. He's still gasping for breath when he opens his laptop and connects the video call.

"What is it?" he demands.

"Dalton, we found her."

-o-o-

Jaz doesn't sleep much. The floor is hard and uncomfortable, and she's shaking with cold much of the time. The cell is too cramped for her to lie flat, and her battered muscles ache from being curled into a ball. When she does manage to drift off, she often wakes in a panic, startled into consciousness by half-remembered acts of cruelty.

But every so often, she dreams of home. She feels Dalton's strong arm around her as they stroll through the streets while undercover, hears McGuire's teasing laughter. She tastes Amir's Lebanese breakfasts, sees the way Preach's face lights up as he Skypes with his daughters.

Sometimes, in the dreams, Dalton talks to her. She can never make out what he says, but his voice is soothing and gentle, his eyes dancing with joy and mischief. She can feel him tuck her long hair behind her ear.

But when she reaches out to touch him, he disappears.

The only time she cries is when she wakes up from those dreams.

-o-o-

Dalton's heart is pounding in his ears, but he ignores it.

They're here. They're finally, finally here. And if all goes according to plan, they'll have Jaz back in less than twenty minutes.

Even if all doesn't go according to plan, Dalton's team has trained for every single possibility.

And they're not leaving without her.

They have less than 12 hours before the Iranian government's deadline for her execution. But a solid tip from a long-time asset, combined with some sloppy encryption work on the uplink of the latest video has enabled DIA to pinpoint Jaz's location.

And here they are. Huddled in a van outside a secret black site, waiting for the go-ahead from command.

Preach puts a hand on his shoulder, and he realizes that he's bouncing his leg up and down. "We got her Top," he says, and Dalton is jealous of the confidence in his voice. "We've got this."

"Yeah," he says, nodding to himself. "Yeah."

Amir is so focused it's scary. McGuire shoves more medical supplies and an extra canteen of water into his pack.

Dalton tries not to let himself imagine what kind of shape she's in.

He hadn't been able to watch the whole video. Hadn't been able to look at the whip hitting her bare stomach, had walked away completely when they'd begun whaling on her with their fists and the butts of their guns.

Her weak, crackling voice had twisted his guts.

But now they're just meters away from her. And next time they're in this van she'll be with them.

"Drone will be in place in three minutes," Hannah's voice says into his ear. 100% focused. 100% business.

"All right, let's review the plan one more time," Dalton says.

-o-o-

Jaz doesn't know how long it's been since they dumped her back in this cell. Doesn't know if 72 hours have passed, or twelve, or a thousand. She doesn't know if the deadline is up - if it's time for her execution.

She's been in and out of consciousness since the guards treated her as a punching bag. It's been easier that way.

She's scared. She wouldn't ever admit it, even to herself, but knowing that they're going to tie her to a pole, put a bag over her head and shoot her is terrifying.

She wonders if it will hurt. Wonders if she'll feel anything, or if it will all just...end.

She wishes they'd at least give her a chance to say goodbye. Not to her family - she'd made her peace with them long ago. But to her team. To Dalton.

There are so many things she wishes she could say to Dalton. She hopes he knows at least some of them.

She hears a gunshot from far away, then screaming in Farsi. She can't make out the words.

But she knows this is it. They're coming for her.

She tries to sit up. Finds that she can't.

She closes her eyes.

Another gunshot.

She won't let them see her cry.

-o-o-

"Where is she?" Dalton hisses, pressing the knife to the guard's carotid. A trickle of blood drips down his neck, and Dalton feels a sick sort of pleasure.

The terrified guard babbles at him in Farsi. Dalton digs the knife in a little deeper.

"He's saying she's in a cell, in the second sub-basement," Hannah translates in his ear. "The keys are on his belt - it's the key with the green cover."

Dalton plunges the knife into the guard's throat, relishing the gurgling, pain-filled sound he makes. Blood gushes, and Dalton lets him drop to the ground, kicking him once in the stomach for good measure.

He recognizes this guard from the video. He knows what this guy's done to Jaz.

"North stairwell is clear!" Amir announces in his comm link.

"Okay, make sure it stays that way," Dalton says. He shrugs his rifle out of the way so he can pull the keys off the belt of the guard he's just dispatched. "Preach, how we doing on their comms?"

"You should be good for another two minutes."

"All right, I'm going down," Dalton says, hurrying towards the stairs. "McG, you've got the south?"

"All clear."

He hurries down the staircase, trying not to let his excitement and nerves trip him up. It's pitch black as he descends, and he switches on his headlamp.

The basement is silent. He looks around, scanning for any sight of her.

"Dalton, status," Patricia says in his ear, her voice tense.

"Entering the sub-basement," he says under his breath. He takes a careful step, two - and then he hears a whimper.

"Jaz?" he gasps, hustling towards it.

And there she is. Right there, in front of him, for the first time in more than two months.

Alive.

"Dalton?" "Top?" There is a cacophony of voices in his comm, but he ignores them all, fumbling in his pocket for the keys.

He unlocks the cell, yanks the door open, and is suddenly on his knees beside her.

"Jaz," he whispers. "Hey, Jaz."

She's curled up into a ball, face pressed against the cold concrete.

"Top," she murmurs, eyes bleary and unfocused. He turns his headlamp away from her face.

"Hey," he says, throat filling with tears. He presses his palm to her cheek - she's ice cold, but she's _here_. With him. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you."

She tries to lift her arm, tries to reach for him, but she's too weak.

"Dalton, you've got two tangoes on the second floor, heading down the south staircase," Hannah says urgently.

"I've got it," McG responds.

"Okay," Dalton says, refocusing. "I've got Jaz. I'm gonna get her up the north stairwell. Preach, I need you at that exit. She's not ambulatory."

"Copy," Preach says.

Dalton holsters his sidearm, turns back to Jaz. She's staring up at him like she isn't sure he's really there. "You're safe," he promises, trying not to look at the bruises on her face. At her bare legs. "I'm getting you out of here."

He slides his arms underneath her knees and back. She's so thin, so frail. She moans as he lifts her up, clutching her against his chest like he might an infant. "All right, I'm heading up," he says.

"North is clear," Amir responds.

"Standing by at the exit," Preach says.

He takes the stairs slowly, carefully, cradling her against him, not wanting to cause her any further pain.

"I wish this was real," Jaz says, so softly he can barely hear her.

His heart cracks into pieces. They should have found her sooner.

"It is, Jaz," he says. "I promise you, it is. You're safe, okay? It's all gonna be okay."

It's all gonna be okay.

-o-o-

She wakes up on the floor of the van to McGuire sliding an IV into her arm, and promptly rolls over and vomits bile onto the dirty carpet.

"Shh, shh, shh," Dalton murmurs, his big, warm hand pressing against her forehead. She fights the urge to flinch, to cry, to scream. "You're safe, Jaz. We've got you."

She tries to get up, but hands hold her down. She can only manage a whimper.

"Shhh," Dalton says. "You're safe, Jaz. It's okay, it's okay."

But it's _not_ okay, because her legs are bare and bruised, and Dalton sounds like he's going to cry, and the men she respects most in the world are seeing her, naked and violated on the floor of this car, and nothing will ever be okay again.

"Fifteen minutes to the border," she hears Amir say, his voice far away.

She feels hands rolling up her shirt, and she gasps, squeezing her eyes shut.

"No, Jaz, don't go to sleep," Dalton says desperately. "Stay with me."

She keeps her eyes shut. She can't be here for this.

-o-o-

"And you are officially in Azerbaijan!" Hannah's voice says in his ear. Cheerful. Celebratory.

He can hear clapping and laughter in the background from the DIA.

They've done it. They've gotten Jaz out of Iran. They're safe.

None of his team celebrates. And if it weren't for Jaz, unconscious in his arms, he's not sure he'd be able to hold it together.

"Transport is four minutes out," Noah tells him. "Stay low in case anyone's tracking you on the Iranian side."

Amir nods to a copse of trees by the side of the dirt road. They all fall in, stealthily moving behind it.

Jaz doesn't even stir. He's grateful. He can't imagine how much pain she must be in.

"You okay?" Preach asks quietly. "I can take her if you need."

Dalton shakes his head. "I got her," he says.

-o-o-

She wakes up again to movement - too fast on a bumpy road, her head bumping into metal, a muttered curse.

Dalton's face is hovering over her, his eyes worried, his lips smiling.

This dream again.

She squeezes her eyes shut, tears welling. No. She can't handle this again. It's not fair, it's not…

But didn't this happen already? Was McGuire there? Was that a dream too?

"Hey, hey, Jaz," Dalton says.

His voice. She never hears his voice in the dreams.

"Hey, look at me. Jaz, can you open your eyes?"

Curious, she does. His face is still hovering over hers, his thumb rubbing the tears from her eyes.

"We've got you, okay? You're safe. We've just crossed into Azerbaijan. We'll be at Dollyar in about two hours."

"Hey, Jazzy," McGuire says, his face coming into her line of vision. "You're doing great, okay? You just hang in there."

She looks from one man to the other. McGuire is injecting something into the IV connected to her arm. Dalton is clutching one of her hands. Her head is pillowed on his thigh.

This may not be a dream.

-o-o-


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

-o-o-

Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews! I can't tell you how happy they make me. I'll be traveling for the next few weeks, so I can't promise to update with any sort of regularity, but I will do my best - there will definitely be a few more chapters!

-o-o-

He finds her, unsurprisingly, on the beach.

They're on stand down at base for a month, at least, while Jaz recovers physically and while all of them deal with what happened. Possibly longer, if Patricia can wrangle them a couple weeks of leave as well.

And they're all struggling. To deal, to process, to move on. McG's been hitting the bag harder than usual, while Preach has been spending hours on the phone with his wife, and Amir has been disappearing to the mosque for long stretches. They're all seeing a mandated counselor, all working through their guilt and anger and trauma.

But Jaz…

The Jaz they pulled out of that prison is not the same one who walked into the Palace Hotel, nerves and excitement and determination dancing in her brown eyes.

And all Dalton can do is try to find that Jaz again.

She's sitting alone on the sand, arms wrapped around her legs, staring out at the water. He watches her from a safe distance, trying to figure out what she's thinking.

Wishing she would cry or scream or get angry or _anything_. Anything at all that would reassure him that she's still there, still fighting.

But she doesn't. She sits, frozen, her eyes a million miles away.

He wonders what she's seeing. What she's reliving.

She's been debriefed, of course. He was in the room for the session, with the higher ups and with Patricia on a secure video channel. He heard her barebones account of what had happened - how they'd tortured her, what they'd said to her, what she'd told them.

They've yet to talk about it. But he knows - both because he was the one who carried her out of that cell, and because he knows _her_ \- that she left things out.

He takes a tentative, hesitant step. "Hey," he calls out, voice hoarse and scratchy.

She flinches, but doesn't move. Doesn't turn toward him.

He takes a few steps closer, lowers himself to the sand beside her. She's tense, stiff. She doesn't look at him.

"How are you feeling?" he asks cautiously.

While the boys have been throwing themselves into training, Jaz is on full rest until Medical clears her. She's said nothing about it - she's said nothing about anything - but he knows she's both still in pain, and that she can't stand seeing them going out without her.

He steals a look at her now. She's so thin.

"I'm fine," she says, her voice completely empty.

"Ribs doing okay?" he asks.

"All good."

"What about your back?" he presses gently.

"I said I'm fine," she says shortly. She keeps her eyes on the horizon.

He tries not to sigh. He doesn't know what to do for her. How to help her.

So he sits with her in silence, watching the sun slowly sink below the horizon, waiting beside her as the darkness sets in.

He won't let her face it alone.

-o-o-

Jaz isn't sure what had compelled her to confess to Dalton that day in Syria that he was the only CO she'd ever had who didn't look at her and see a woman first. For some reason, sitting in that car in her hijab, rifle clutched in her hands, she'd wanted him to know.

And it was true. Of him, and the entire team. They'd never once made her feel out of place, never made her feel like she wasn't good enough or strong enough or tough enough. Like she was a token, or a diversity hire, or like she put them at risk. She'd been one of the guys - but at the same time, she hadn't had to change who she was, hadn't had to pretend to _be_ a guy. They'd just respected her. She'd just fit.

She knows that's not normal. The few other women who'd made it through Special Forces training with her - she knows that most of them did not end up like she did, in places where their skills were used and valued and respected.

She'd always known how lucky she was.

And now it feels like it's all slipping away.

She knows they all know what happened, even if none of them have broached it with her. Knows they're all looking at her differently - that they're feeling guilty.

Which is ridiculous, because it's all her fault. She's the one who got caught. She's the one who hesitated before jumping out that window.

If only she hadn't hesitated. She thinks about that moment all the time. Those ten seconds when she'd stared at the window, contemplating whether she could handle it. Those few seconds when she'd thought about how much crashing through that plate glass and falling 20 feet onto asphalt would hurt, rather than just sprinting for the window.

For her life.

None of the guys would have done that, she knows. They're all braver than she is.

And none of them would have let themselves get taken.

And if they knew exactly what had happened in that prison, knew about what those guards had done, about the humiliation and the pain and the powerlessness...they'd see her as a victim. They wouldn't be able to look at her as the strong, confident sniper who'd earned her spot.

All they'd see is the weak, helpless little girl waiting for someone to come save her.

The rape victim.

She knows this is true, because it's all she sees when she looks in the mirror.

And so she sits alone, isolated, where she used to be part of a group, a family. She watches her brothers try to move on, to keep going.

But she can't.

-o-o-

"How's everyone holding up?" Patricia asks, her voice clear across the secure video link.

Dalton shrugs. There's no good answer to that. He doesn't know why she keeps asking.

"Everyone's been going to their shrink appointments," he says. "I think off-base leave would be good, especially for Preach and Amir."

He's not sure it would be so beneficial for McG, who will likely go to Istanbul or Mykonos and sleep his way through as many dive bars as he can find.

He's also not so sure it would be good for Jaz. He knows he's certainly not letting her out of his sight if they're granted leave.

"I'm working on it," she promises him. "It'll come through."

"Good," he says shortly, hoping that will be the end of the conversation.

No luck.

"How's Jaz doing?" Campbell presses, her voice so sympathetic it makes him flinch.

"Medical cleared her to start light exercise," he says, because that's some good news, at least. "She's back at the shooting range now, actually."

He'd wanted to go with her, but she'd wanted to go alone.

Campbell doesn't let it go. "How's she doing?" she asks again.

Dalton swallows. "She's…"

He doesn't even know what to say. She's not talking, to anyone? She wakes up screaming every night, and that's the only time she expresses any sort of emotion? She's twenty-five pounds thinner than she was two months ago, and she's not eating?

She flinches when anyone touches her, when anyone says her name?

"Do you think she might benefit from some time at home?" Campbell broaches carefully. He waits for her to elaborate. "It's been suggested that we put her on disability. For three months. She could come back to Bragg, give her some time to rehab and recover."

"No," Dalton says, too quickly.

"Look, I talked to a couple of the military psychologists," Campbell says. "They thought that given what she's been through, it might not be a bad idea for her to get away for a while. The distance might allow her to process and to work through -"

"I think you take Jaz away from her work and her team for three months and she eats her gun," Dalton says, without thinking.

Campbell visibly recoils.

"I'm sorry," Dalton says, rubbing his forehead. He wonders if this headache will ever go away. "I just - I think that she needs to know that nothing has changed. That she still has a place on this team, and that things will eventually get back to normal."

"Adam, if you think that Jaz is suicidal-"

"I don't," he says quickly. "I don't. I'm sorry. She's not. She's just going through a rough time right now, and I think that sending her back to the States will only make it harder."

The truth is, he has no idea. It's not like Jaz is talking to him. But he's not going to lay that out for Deputy Director Campbell.

If this is the only way he can protect Jaz, then he sure as hell is going to do it.

-o-o-

Jaz brings only her pistol to the range.

She'd spent nearly ten minutes looking longingly at her rifle, running her finger along the barrel, the grip, the trigger.

She thinks about bringing it. Thinks about how good it would feel to fire it.

But the last time she held this rifle, she'd missed her shot, for the first time in her career. In her life. She'd missed her shot, and that's what led to all of this.

So she leaves the rifle on the rack, holsters her Sig, and heads to the range.

She chooses a lane as isolated as possible, away from the other soldiers training.

She takes her time putting on her goggles and earmuffs, loading ammunition. When she's finally ready, she raises the gun, and finds that her hands are shaking.

She ignores it. Takes a slow, deep breath, like she's been trained to do. She's a fucking soldier. A _sniper_. She can sure as hell still fire her gun.

She pulls the trigger - once, twice, three times. She keeps going and going and going, until the whole clip is empty.

She's breathing hard, her heart pounding in her chest. The sounds of bullets echoing around her seem too loud, too close.

The paper target is a mess - bullet holes everywhere, none in the center ring.

She stares at it incredulously, nausea swirling in her throat. She's a _sniper_. The very first time she picked up a gun, she put more than half her shots in the ten ring.

She's the best shot on her team. It's always been something she's extremely proud of.

It's always been who she _is_.

Trembling, she reloads the gun. Squares off to target, and fires.

She doesn't even hit the paper. Like an amateur.

Her legs give out, and she collapses into a heap on the floor.

What is she supposed to do if she can't do this?

-o-o-

He wakes to the sound of screaming and nearly falls out of bed, his legs tangling in the sheets.

 _Shit_.

He searches the floor for a T-shirt, stumbles out into the hallway. McG is already standing there, staring at Jaz's door, eyes bleary with sleep and worry.

"No!" Jaz wails, her voice laced with pain and fear. "No, please! Just shoot me! Please, no!"

McG winces, his fists clenching tightly. Dalton tries to breathe.

She's been yelling this in her sleep all week, since she was released from Medical. It hasn't gotten any easier to hear.

"I got it," Dalton says quietly, patting McGuire on the shoulder.

"Yeah," McG says hoarsely.

He slowly, carefully opens the door to Jaz's quarters, fumbles for the light switch on the wall.

She's pinned to the bed by her own tangled sheets, her hair sweaty and matted to her face, fighting off an imaginary attacker. "Jaz," he tries, keeping a safe distance.

"No!" she shrieks. "No!"

"Jaz!" he calls, a little louder. "Hey, Jaz. It's me, it's Dalton. Jaz, you're safe. It's okay."

She jerks away from him, suddenly wide awake, gasping for air.

"Jaz," he tries carefully, reaching for her.

She stumbles off the bed. "I'm gonna be sick," she chokes, and before he can get to her, she's racing for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

The rest of the team is gathered in the hallway. Dalton stops, tries to say something that will be leaderly and reassuring.

He's got nothing.

"Give her some time, Top," Preach reminds him.

Dalton shakes his head. He doesn't think there's enough time in the world.

-o-o-

"And how are you feeling mentally?" the Army psychiatrist asks. "Any nightmares or flashbacks?"

"No," Jaz says pleasantly, a casual smile pasted onto her face. She's sitting up as straight as the still-healing scars on her back will allow - a soldier. "I'm feeling pretty good. Ready to get back to work."

The therapist studies her. Unblinking. Jaz tries not to break eye contact, but it's hard.

"Sergeant Kahn," the woman says with a sigh. "I know you're eager to get back to your job. I'm eager to help you get there. But you need to be honest with me about what you're feeling and how you're doing."

Jaz swallows. Looks away.

Changes tactics. Just like she's been trained.

"I think that - yeah, it's been difficult," she says, as if admitting a deep, dark secret. "I'm still angry at myself for letting it happen, and that my team had to go through so much to rescue me. And yeah, I've had a couple bad dreams, but just - I mean, nothing terribly out of the ordinary."

She can still taste the bile in her throat from last night's - well, this morning's - horror of a nightmare, can still feel the way the hose connected with the bare skin of her back over and over and over again, can still smell the sweat of the men who'd held her down, who'd…

She takes a breath. Counts to five. Releases it.

"I think the hardest thing has just been not really being up to my usual physical standards," she says, and it's true, it is, and she wants so badly to believe it that maybe if she says it, that's what will be. "You know, my back is still hurting a lot, and I'm just really out of shape, and...it's hard to not be able to train, and to watch my team working without me."

It's hard to go to the gun range and not even be able to hit the target.

She fakes a laugh. Casual. She's fine.

"I just can't wait to be back out there, really," she says, aiming for offhand and missing wildly.

"Have you talked with your team about what happened?" the doctor presses.

Jaz can feel her heart rate tick up. "What?" she manages.

"Well, you five all work very closely together," the doctor says. "You share living quarters, work, goals, experiences. I'm sure they went through a lot while you were gone, and I know they're all struggling to work through what happened too."

Jaz sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, so hard she can taste the blood. She doesn't like to think about how hard those months were for her teammates, about the scars she can see them all carrying.

It makes her a shitty teammate, she knows. But she just can't handle it.

"It seems to me like a big part of your healing process - for both you and the team, actually - is to be able to talk about this mission. I'm happy to help facilitate, if you think that would make it easier."

Jaz feels like she can't get a breath in. She digs her fingers into the arms of her chair, desperate to keep it together.

This woman is out of her mind if she thinks that Jaz is going to sit down with the four people she respects most in this world, with the only true family she's ever had, and tell them about what happened in the basement of that prison. _Out of her fucking mind_.

"Sergeant Khan?" the doctor says, her voice suddenly low and soothing, and way too close. "Sergeant Khan, take a deep breath. You're okay. Deep breath."

But she can't.

-o-o-

Amir suggests heading off-base for dinner, to a mezze place in Adana that they all like. Preach and McG agree enthusiastically.

They're all watching Jaz warily, worriedly, all trying to pretend that they're not.

Her eyes widen. Her hands shake. Dalton watches her take several unsteady breaths before she's able to paste on the fake smile she's been wearing these days.

"I'm just - I have this headache," she says, voice high and thin. "I'm not hungry, really. But you guys should go!"

She backs away from them, bumping into the kitchen table as she does.

"I'll see you guys - you should go out too!" she says, her voice high and fake. "We're on stand down, right? Might as well take advantage of it! I'll see you - yeah, later! Have fun!"

They all watch, a little stunned, as she disappears from the room.

"Top?" Amir says hesitantly.

"I'm on it," he says. "You guys should go. I'll - let me try talking to her again."

Because that's been working so well.

"I'll cook," Preach offers, heading for the refrigerator. "We've gotta get her to eat something."

"Guys, she's not gonna want you to -"

"We're a team," Preach cuts him off, handing McG a jar of tomato sauce. "We go out together."

-o-o-

She plants herself in the same spot on the beach, bare toes digging into the sand. She's not sure why she keeps coming back here over and over again, why this is the only place she feels like she can breathe.

Maybe because it reminds her of why she did it. Why she put herself through that.

She runs her fingers along a scar on her arm, trying not to look at it. She's so ugly now, her skin laced with burns and cuts and bruises that still haven't healed. She'd never thought too much about beauty, never been the vain queen she'd joked about with Dalton. But now that it's all gone, now that her entire body is marked by what happened to her, she can't help dwelling on it.

She doesn't know what she's supposed to do. Doesn't know how she can go back to her job, her team, her life. Not for the first time, she thinks it might have been better if she'd died in that Iranian prison. If the team had never been able to find her, if she'd died that first night, before...before.

She startles as Dalton sits down beside her, tries to keep herself from crying out.

"It's just me," he says, his voice calm and soothing, the way it had been in her comm link before they ripped it out of her ear.

 _We're coming for you, Jaz. Just stay calm, okay? It's gonna be okay, we're coming for you._

She waits until her breathing evens out, until her heart rate slows back down.

"You should go out," she manages. "You don't need to babysit me."

He ignores that.

"Look," he says. She can feel his eyes on her, studying her face. She keeps her own trained on the sea, on the waves gently breaking against the shore. "I don't know what they did to you in there. I can't even begin to imagine…" He breaks off, and she swallows hard, begging her eyes to stay dry. "I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like. What you went through."

"Dalton," she manages, voice suddenly choked.

"Just listen," he says insistently. "I can't imagine what you're going through right now. But Jaz, you have to know, I will do anything to help you. Anything at all. So will any of the guys. Whatever you need."

She squeezes her eyes shut, clenching her fists so her hands don't shake.

But Dalton isn't finished. "There is literally nothing you could say to me that would make me think less of you, or make me judge you, or make me not want to work with you," he says. "You have nothing to prove to me. I promise you that, Jaz."

She can't choke down the sob that forces its way through her throat. She buries her face in her palms, wishing the sand would open up and swallow her.

Dalton puts a gentle hand on her back. She flinches, but he doesn't pull away.

"I hesitated," she gasps. "I - I was afraid. I thought - the window - and I hesitated, and that gave them enough - I should have -"

"No," he says firmly, his mouth just inches from her ear. "You did absolutely nothing wrong. You did everything right."

"If I'd just - and you could have all gotten killed because I - because I -"

She doesn't know why she can't get the words out.

"You did nothing wrong," Dalton repeats, his voice steady and soothing. An anchor. "It's not your fault. Nothing is your fault."

She feels him, very slowly, very carefully, sliding his arm around her back, pulling her into his chest. She fights the urge to push him away.

"I can still feel them," she says, the words coming out without her permission. "When I close my eyes I feel them."

He presses his lips to her hair, and she shivers.

"It's gonna get better," he murmurs. "I promise you."

"I just want my life back," she chokes.

There are tears sliding down her cheeks, soaking into Dalton's T-shirt. They're the first tears she's cried since they pulled her out of her hellhole in Tehran.

"You'll get it back," he whispers, rocking her gently. "It's gonna be okay, Jaz."

She clutches his shirt in her fist and silently lets the tears flow.

-o-o-


	3. Chapter 3

-o-o-

Thank you all so much for your reviews! They're really exciting to read, and a really nice confidence boost! :) I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season!

-o-o-

They're all nervous.

It's only 0730, but Amir and McG have already gotten into three of the stupidest arguments Dalton has ever heard. Preach has been sitting on the floor in the corner, on the phone with his wife, since Dalton returned from his ten mile run more than an hour ago.

He's been lifting the whole time. His arms feel like jelly, but despite the hours of intense exercise, he can't seem to get the anxiety to stop thrumming through his veins.

Jaz hasn't even emerged from her quarters yet.

He'd thought they'd made progress that night on the beach, thought that she was finally opening up to him. But the days since have felt like a giant, disastrous tumble backward - the nightmares have gotten worse, and he doesn't think she's eating at all. She's been spending hours at the gun range and walking alone around base, even when it's clear she's in serious pain.

Worse, she's been spending more and more time quite literally hiding from him, more days locked alone in her room. Even when they are in the same space, she won't meet his eyes.

Recovery from trauma isn't a linear process, his own shrink told him when he brought it up.

He's struggling to get the bar up just one more time, eyes closed, grimacing against the pain, when suddenly the load is lightened. He looks up, sees Preach helping him.

"Thanks," he grunts, settling the bar onto the rack. He reaches for the towel draped over a nearby folding chair, presses it to his face.

"Go shower," Preach orders. "Amir'll make breakfast," he adds, loudly, pointedly, nodding towards the sophomoric fight on the other side of the room.

Both Amir and McG shut up. Amir immediately heads for the refrigerator.

"Yeah," Dalton says. He doesn't move.

"It's gonna be okay, Top," Preach says. "It's gonna help."

Given the look on Jaz's face when the orders came down, he's really not sure how a team meeting with the Army shrink could possibly help anything.

But he nods, pulls himself off the bench.

He doesn't see how it could make things worse, at any rate.

-o-o-

They needed to leave five minutes ago to be on time. The boys are all waiting for her in the kitchen, but Jaz is still hunched over the toilet, vomiting up the remains of last night's meager dinner.

She's a shaky mess, tears streaming down her cheeks, gasping for air, stomach aching, hands trembling.

And she has thirty seconds to pull herself together and go out there and be a soldier.

It really feels like the universe is just asking way too much of her.

It's been three days since she cried in Dalton's arms on the beach, and she hasn't been able to look at him since. He's tried multiple times to talk to her - and woken her up from several nightmares - but she's shied away, made up excuses, quite literally run away from the hangar.

He may say she has nothing to prove to him - he may even believe it himself - but Jaz has been a woman in the military long enough to know that she absolutely cannot show that kind of weakness in front of her commanding officer. Not if she wants to remain in Special Forces.

She'd fucking cried in his arms.

Jaz flushes the toilet, forces herself to get up. Her legs are shaking so badly she's afraid she might fall over, and she closes her eyes, thinks back to the week of hell that was Special Forces selection camp - the 96 hours without sleep, the miles and miles of marching with fifty pounds on her back, the pull-ups until she could no longer lift her arms.

At the time, she remembers thinking, she'd believed that if she could make it through that, she could make it through anything.

Now she's not so sure.

-o-o-

"To start with, I thought it might be good for all of you to share your experiences of what's happened the last few months," Jaz's therapist - Captain Connolly - says. "I know it's not an easy thing to talk about, but I think it would be beneficial for each of you to know what your teammates have been feeling."

Dalton glances around the room. The tension is so overwhelming it's hard to breathe.

"Sergeant Khan's capture was hard on the whole team," Captain Connolly continues. Jaz flinches, and Dalton digs his fingernails into his palms to keep from reaching for her. "I know that everyone is struggling with it, but I believe that the only way to get through it is together. So - we're not going to resolve everything today, of course, but I hope that this can be the beginning of a process that gets you all back out there doing what you want to be doing."

She smiles warmly.

The boys all glance at each other, warily, assessing. Jaz remains ramrod straight on her armchair, eyes focused on the wall. She's holding herself so rigidly that Dalton's afraid she might crack into pieces.

"Who wants to go first?" Captain Connolly asks.

There's a long, heavy silence.

Dalton takes a deep breath - it's his responsibility, he knows. He has to do this, even if it's going to be hell - on him, on Jaz, on all of them.

But Amir beats him to it.

"It started when I got made in the tea shop," he says.

Dalton startles, eyes flying to his newest team member.

"It screwed everything up," Amir continues. He's hunched over, staring at the ground, the guilt so thick Dalton can almost touch it. "It fucked up the mission, and it forced us to regroup and come up with something on the fly, and that's how we ended up in that situation."

"Amir," Dalton starts, but Captain Connolly holds up a hand.

"So, the failure of the original plan," she says, her voice devoid of judgment. "You think that was because of you, Amir?"

Amir keeps his eyes on the floor. "I'm the one - I wanted justice so badly," he says. "I wanted revenge, and I wasn't thinking straight, and that - I said it was a good plan." His voice is so full of bitterness and self-loathing.

Dalton watches him, stunned. How could he not have known this?

The only one who's even broached the subject of guilt was McG - and Dalton had never followed up on that conversation, never checked back in to see how his teammate was doing.

He's failed in so many ways.

"I should have known there was no way it could have worked," Amir continues. "It was stupid and reckless and dangerous. There were too many - there was no way to get you out safely, and I should have known that, and I should have said it. I'm so sorry, Jaz."

Jaz still has her eyes fixed on the wall, but the expression on her face is painful to look at. Her mouth is twisted into a grimace, her cheeks tight from holding in the tears.

Dalton nearly loses it just looking at her.

"It was too risky, and we sent her in there like…" Amir trails off, shakes his head.

"Amir?" Captain Connolly presses, when he doesn't continue.

"I knew what they would do to her if she got caught," Amir says finally. "And the whole time you - the whole time she was missing, I just kept - all I could think about was what they were doing to her, what she was going through. I knew -"

"No," Jaz says suddenly.

She springs up from her chair, panic radiating off her in waves. "I'm sorry, I can't," she gasps.

She's out the door before anyone can stop her.

-o-o-

Jaz brings a bottle of vodka into her room and locks the door.

She's been trying not to drink, afraid that once she starts she won't be able to stop. She's not an alcoholic, has never worried about her relationship with drinking - but sometimes, since she's been back, she's thought about how easy it would be to just keep knocking back shots until she knocks herself out.

It scares her a little - but today, she just can't take it.

She'd avoided the boys all day, headed straight for the gun range after fleeing the group therapy session. She'd spent hours there, methodically firing shot after shot after shot, until she'd been certain the team was out at afternoon formation.

She's been locked in her room ever since. She can hear footsteps passing by, occasionally stopping outside her door, but no one knocks, no one tries to talk to her.

When she first got back, the idea of being locked into her claustrophobic little room was suffocating, terrifying - sometimes she wakes up from a nightmare in the dark, the walls closing in, and is certain that she's back on the floor of that tiny cell.

But most of the time, her room is the only place she feels safe - the only place where it's quiet and calm, where no one's asking anything of her or expecting anything from her.

After so many weeks alone in silence, the chaos and noise of the base, of the barracks she used to love sharing with her team, is too much to handle.

She takes a long slug of vodka, closing her eyes, hoping it works quickly - she hasn't eaten all day, so oblivion shouldn't be too far away.

Amir's words have been ringing in her head all day. The tortured look on his face, the guilt in his voice. She doesn't want them thinking about what happened to her. Doesn't want to know that they'd spent those two months agonizing over what she'd been going through.

She doesn't want those pictures in their heads.

She's still not sure what they know, what they've seen. Isn't sure whether the DIA had shared the videos, if her brothers have watched the graphic, horrifying evidence of the very worst moments of her life.

Footsteps approach her door. Stop. She braces for it...but there's nothing.

Just silence.

Dalton, probably. Sitting outside her room.

She takes another gulp of the vodka. She needs all of it to go away.

-o-o-

It feels terrible to do this - to sit at the picnic table outside the hangar, talking about her - but she won't even look at any of them. And Dalton hates to admit it, but - the therapist might have been right.

They do need to talk about what happened.

"If she's gonna talk to anyone it's gonna be you, Top," McG says, fingering the label of his untouched beer. "Maybe it would go better if you started just the two of you."

Dalton shakes his head. "I tried," he says. And then… "She did talk to me. Sort of. And then she clammed up again."

"She'll come around when she's ready," Preach says.

"It's been two weeks," Amir says, his voice laced with frustration.

"She spent two months in an Iranian prison, Amir," Preach replies, calmly, steadily. "You gotta give her some time."

"I just feel like we're fucking this up," McGuire says. "Like there's gotta be something we could be doing."

"What if she doesn't need to talk?" Amir suggests. "What if she just needs to move on? Maybe if Medical cleared her and she could go back to full training-"

McG scoffs. "She can barely move," he says. "Do you see how she's walking? She's in agony. She's not ready to be training yet."

"Isn't there something Medical could do?" Dalton asks.

"They could get her to take her painkillers," McG says with a shrug.

Dalton rubs his forehead, wishing _he_ had some painkillers. Between Jaz's nightmares and his own, he's barely sleeping at all, and it's catching up to him.

"We've gotta try and draw her out more," Amir says determinedly. "I mean, let's get her off base, let's try to get her out. We can play horseshoes or go out to a bar or whatever, we've just gotta - she just needs to get back to normal."

"You can't force her to be normal," Preach says.

"I'm not saying force her, I'm just-"

"Amir," Preach cuts him off firmly. "All of you. We can't push her. It's not gonna work. All we can do is keep an eye on her and be there for her when she's ready."

Dalton sighs. All he's been doing is trying to be there for her.

"I just miss her," McG says quietly.

"It's not about you," Preach says.

Dalton thinks of the nightmare he had last night, the vivid image of Jaz being assaulted on the floor of that cell. She hasn't told him what happened - hasn't confirmed his suspicions that she was raped - but ever since she confessed to him that she could still feel them on her, it's all he's been able to think about.

And he wonders - is getting her to open up about helping her? Or himself?

-o-o-

Jaz wakes up in a cold sweat.

She sits up in her narrow bed, pressing her face into the damp sheets, shivering, gasping for air, fighting to calm herself down as she waits for one of the boys to come check on her.

Usually it's Dalton, but they've all taken turns. Preach even slept on her floor for a few hours, after a particularly vicious nightmare.

But tonight, there's no knock on her door, no feet shuffling around the hallway, no anxious, whispered conversations that they think she can't hear. And she realizes - she must not have screamed.

Well, that's gotta be a sign of progress, right?

Except - now she's alone. And the remnants of the dream are still dancing in her head, its tentacles curling around her chest.

She tumbles off the bed, tripping over a shoe, bumping hard into her dresser. Cold terror gripping her, she swallows a cry, and flings the door open, barely managing to make it to the bathroom before she's expelling the contents of her guts into the toilet.

She sinks down to the tile floor, shivering violently.

She's not sure she can take much more of this.

Utterly drained, she leans her head back against the wall, pressing a hand to her somersaulting stomach. This has been happening almost every night, and she can't-

The realization hits her like a bullet.

 _She's been vomiting every night_.

No. No. She can't. She absolutely cannot - there is just no way.

She forces herself to breathe. In and out, in and out. To think, to be rational - she's a _soldier_ , for fuck's sake.

She tries to remember her last period, and finds that she can't. There hasn't been one since she was rescued. She certainly didn't have one in that prison. And before that…

She has no idea. Months, it's been months, and she…

She hunches over, pressing her forehead to the cold tile. _Breathe. Breathe._

She reaches out for something - anything - to hold onto.

There's nothing.

-o-o-

It's been months since Dalton got a full night of sleep. The worry and the stress and the intense training have left him running on fumes.

And so he's practically comatose when Amir comes to wake him.

At first he's not sure what's going on. The shaking feels like part of his dream, like the hammock he's lying in is just gently swaying in the breeze, like the light dancing along his eyelids is the sun peeking out from behind a towering palm tree, like-

"Top!" a voice says urgently. "Top, wake up! Wake up!"

"Jaz," he gasps, and sits bolt upright, his head nearly connecting with Amir's. "What? I - Amir?"

"Sorry, but you've gotta come now," Amir says. "It's Jaz. We can't calm her down."

He follows Amir to the bathroom and gasps. She's hyperventilating on the floor - her body curled into a ball, her face pressed to the tile. Her arms are flailing, like she's drowning, and the desperate, terrified sounds she's making are agony to hear.

McG is hunched over her, whispering frantically in her ear, trying to pull her hair away from her face. He looks up at Dalton, his eyes wide and scared.

"Oh, thank God," he chokes. "She - I found her like this, and I don't - I can't - I don't think she's hurt, but I just - I don't know what to do, and…"

"Okay," Dalton says. He sinks down to the floor.

He has to stay calm. He has to. She needs him, and he cannot let her down.

Not this time.

"Jaz," he tries, but she doesn't even seem to hear him, keening and wailing and banging her head against the floor.

Shit. He doesn't want to do this, but-

"Shhh, shh," he whispers, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest. She fights him off, but he's too strong for her. "I got you," he murmurs. "I've got you. It's okay."

"I can't," she sobs, the words barely intelligible. "I can't do it. They should have killed me, they should have killed me!"

It hurts, it _hurts_ so much. And all he can do is hold her and tell her that it's going to be okay.

Even if he's not sure that's true.

-o-o-

Jaz lies on the cot, drifting in and out as she waits for the doctor to come back with the results of her blood test. The mental breakdown and the lack of sleep have taken a lot out of her, and it's a struggle just to keep her eyes open.

It would be easier if she could just pass out. Just drift off into blissful, dreamless unconsciousness. But that - the ability to sleep - seems to be just another _thing_ , one in the long list of things that have been taken from her.

Jaz used to be able to sleep anywhere - in foxholes, under trees, on noisy single prop planes, in the pouring rain. The guys had long teased her about it.

Now she's not sure if she'll ever sleep again.

She's not sure she'll ever be able to face the guys again either, after...whatever it was that happened this morning. She doesn't remember much of it. At some point she'd woken up - or regained consciousness, more like - to find herself in Dalton's arms on the bathroom floor, the whole team huddled around her, all of them looking like they'd been crying.

Her forehead had been bruised and aching, and it had triggered a dim memory of banging it against the bathroom floor, of McG begging her to stop.

The door to the treatment room opens, and she startles fully awake.

"Sorry Sergeant Khan," the young doctor says, smiling apologetically. She's the same Army doctor who'd treated Jaz when they had arrived back on base from Azerbaijan, the same one who'd watched over her during the four days she'd spent in the hospital, and Jaz is relieved that at least it's her.

"No," Jaz says, rubbing her eyes. She feels nauseous and shaky and dizzy, and she grips the side of the cot, worried she might fall off. "It's fine. Please, just - please."

"You're not pregnant," the doctor says. "The test was negative."

"Not…" Jaz tries, not sure she heard correctly. Not sure that something _, anything_ , could possibly be turning out okay, for once.

"You're not pregnant," Captain Brandon says again. She steps a little closer, holding eye contact. "It's okay. You're not pregnant."

Jaz buries her face in her hands, relief and terror coursing through her veins in equal measure. Captain Brandon puts a gentle hand on her back, and lets her cry.

-o-o-

Dalton nearly falls out of his uncomfortable chair when the door opens and Jaz emerges from the treatment room.

"Hi," he gasps, pulling himself upright. His head spins. He really needs to get some sleep.

Jaz's face is puffy and tear-stained, and there are fresh bruises on her cheeks and head and arms. She stares past him, her eyes unreadable. Finally, she whispers, "I'm not pregnant."

The words punch him in the stomach. "What?" he manages.

"I thought - I'd been throwing up a lot," she says, avoiding his eyes. "And I thought that - I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that I haven't gotten my...I just thought that I might be."

His heart shatters. His thoughts race in a million different directions, none of them good.

She'd thought she was _pregnant_. She'd thought those monsters had gotten her pregnant.

And now he knows for sure.

It doesn't make it easier. Knowing.

"So, that's what…" he tries, not sure how to finish the sentence. "Last night?"

She shrugs, jamming her hands into the pockets of her sweatpants. "I don't know what happened," she rasps. "I just - I couldn't take it, I guess."

He aches to hug her. To pull her into his arms and take all of this away.

"I'm sorry," she adds, blinking furiously.

"Don't," he says desperately. "It's not your fault. None of it is."

"I've gotta be able to handle it," she mutters, withdrawing even further into herself.

Dalton almost laughs. "You think any of us are _handling_ this?" he says incredulously. She flinches. "I'm sorry," he says, automatically. "I just…"

He looks again at the fresh cuts on her arms, at the darkening bruise on her forehead, the news stitches above her eyebrow.

"You scared the shit out of me this morning," he blurts out.

She wraps her arms tighter around herself. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

A doctor walks by, and Jaz jumps.

"Sorry," she murmurs again, automatically.

"Let's go for a walk," he says. Her eyes dart back and forth, and he knows she's looking for a way out. "C'mon," he says, a little firmer this time.

 _Please let me help you._

-o-o-

They walk along the beach in silence. Jaz is grateful that Dalton doesn't pressure her to say anything.

The rush of emotions she's feeling is intense, and tears cascade quietly down her cheeks.

Jaz is not used to crying - she learned not to as a child, and the tendency has only been reinforced by her years in the Army. But ever since she fell apart in Dalton's arms on this very beach last week, it's like she hasn't been able to stop. She's amazed at her capacity for silent, motionless tears - they just fall like rain, uncontrollably, all the time.

It's a little terrifying.

Dalton doesn't comment - doesn't try to comfort her, doesn't try to make it better. She thinks he knows he can't.

She's not pregnant. She's not pregnant, and she feels like that should lift a huge weight off her shoulders. But it doesn't - because she's still nauseous and scared and exhausted.

The fact that she isn't pregnant doesn't change anything that's happened.

"Let's sit," Dalton says, finally, and she's relieved - she's too out of shape to keep walking, and she's thankful that he didn't make her ask to stop.

She can't help moaning a little as she collapses onto the sand.

"Back still hurting?" Dalton asks, and she shrugs.

"They said it will go away eventually."

"You scared the shit out of me," Dalton says, and she's so startled by that response that she turns to look at him.

He looks...broken. Devastated.

"I…" she tries, but nothing else comes out.

"Look, I'm sorry to-" he starts, then shakes his head. "Jaz, are you thinking about hurting yourself?"

Her mouth drops open and she gapes at him, like a fish.

"You said...this morning, you were saying it would have been better if they killed you," Dalton says. Jaz tries to look away from this train wreck she's caused, finds that she can't. "And every night - the nightmares, you're always saying 'Please, just shoot me.'"

"Top," she whispers, panic building.

"I'm not going to report anything," he says. "I promise you that. I just - I need to know, because I can't lose you."

"I'm fine," she says, avoiding his eyes. "I'm not - it's just some bad dreams."

He sighs, and she can hear the disappointment just in that breath. "You've always been honest with me," he says, almost to himself, but the words hit her like a punch.

She can't take it anymore. And so she does the only thing she can think of - she lunges at him, crashing her lips into his, threading her fingers into his hair tightly.

It's all wrong, it's all wrong, and this is _not_ what she imagined this moment would feel like, and she's definitely going to throw up again, and suddenly, he's pulling her away, his hands grasping her biceps.

"Jaz," he says sadly.

Oh, God.

She jerks herself away, shaking violently.

"Jaz," he tries again, but she's already scrambling to her feet, stumbling away from him.

She wonders if this is rock bottom, or if there's still farther to fall.

-o-o-


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

-o-o-

You guys are the best! I know I sound like a broken record, but I really appreciate your reviews. This chapter is a bit rough, and a definite trigger warning, so...be warned!

-o-o-

Medical hasn't exactly cleared her to run yet, but - well, fuck 'em, Jaz thinks, as she laces up her sneakers.

She's pretty sure if she doesn't go for a run right now she might actually die. She doesn't care how much it hurts.

She's been in pain for months now anyway - what difference does a little more make?

It's barely dawn, but Jaz has been wide awake for hours. Last night's dream had been a special kind of horror, featuring the fat guard mauling her on the damp floor of her cell, while the one with the lazy eye and the one who liked to hurt her as much as possible held her down. It wasn't a totally out of the ordinary dream, except that this one had also featured Dalton, watching from just outside the bars.

She'd eventually managed to persuade Amir and his sad, scared face to go back to bed, but she certainly wasn't going anywhere near hers. Not tonight, and maybe not ever again.

Instead, she's creeping out the door of the barracks, hoping no one else is awake to stop her.

But no luck.

"Going for a run?" Preach's voice startles her, and she nearly bumps into the couch.

"I-" she manages. "Uh, I just…"

"I was just going to head out myself," he says, flipping the light on. He's dressed in workout clothes, sneakers on his feet.

Shit.

"I'm gonna be really slow," she says. "You know, since my marathon training got cut off and all."

The joke falls flat.

"Well, maybe I'll be able to keep up with you for once," Preach shrugs.

Jaz focuses on tightening the drawstring on her shorts, which have loosened considerably since the last time she wore them. Preach waits her out, silently.

It's that patience that makes her give in.

"Okay," she says. "Just - don't laugh."

She knows he won't.

-o-o-

Dalton sits on his bed, watching out the window as Preach and Jaz jog towards the access road, disappearing into the grey light of dawn.

She's not supposed to be running yet, he knows, and she's probably just making things worse.

But then again - he feels like that's all _he's_ been doing too.

Making things worse.

Last night it had been _his_ name she'd been screaming, over and over and over again. He'd forced himself to sit still, to do nothing, to let Amir handle it.

 _Top, no_. He can still hear it, echoing in his ears. _Please, don't! Don't look! Top!_

Fuck.

He leans back against his stack of too-thin, Army-issue pillows, covers his face with his palms. He's usually up by now, out running or lifting or sparring with McG, but today he can't bring himself to get out of bed.

He can still taste her lips on his.

He wonders if she knows how badly he wants to kiss her. How much he wanted that moment - just not like that. Never like that.

Not when it's all mixed up with her tears and her pain, and the way it had felt to hear her say _I'm not pregnant_ , like she'd been spared a death sentence but would be spending the rest of her life in prison.

And - ignoring that he's her commanding officer, and that it's against every rule the Army has, and that they could both be transferred or worse - she's been through hell, and he's her support system. Well, he's trying to be anyway. She's acutely traumatized, and hurt, and suffering, and the kiss was…

He has no idea what the kiss was. No idea if it meant something, or if it was just Jaz, grasping at normalcy, grasping at anything that might make her feel just the tiniest bit better.

He thinks of those months without her, of worrying about what was happening to her, of praying that she was still alive, that she wasn't being hurt.

But - he'd also just missed her. Desperately.

He's tried to tell himself that he would have reacted the same way if any member of the team had been taken, if it had been Preach or Amir or McG in that prison. He would have been just as scared and angry and grief-stricken and determined.

But then...he knows that's not true.

And he doesn't know what to do about it.

-o-o-

They run along, around the perimeter of the base, in silence. Jaz is breathing harder than she'd like, her lack of fitness all too evident. They're running two minutes slower per mile than they normally would, and the whole thing is painful and mortifying.

But Preach doesn't say anything. Just runs alongside her, letting her set the pace.

He's always been good at that.

And so she's not totally surprised when she finds herself speaking.

"I can't talk about what happened," Jaz says.

"I didn't ask you to," Preach reminds her.

"But everyone else is," she says. It's easier to talk this way, running side by side, not looking at each other. "Dalton, the stupid therapist, even McG told me he's here to listen. I'm so fucking sick of it."

Preach doesn't say anything for a long time. So long that Jaz thinks maybe the conversation is over.

She doesn't even know why she started it in the first place.

She tries to focus on her breathing, on her wonky, uncomfortable stride.

"You ever stop to think that maybe everyone's trying to help?" Preach asks quietly.

"They can help by not looking at me!" she says, suddenly furious, nearly tripping over a root in her path.

"Not looking at you?"

"You're all looking at me different," she bites. "Like...like you're...like you..."

Like they're worried she's going to break. Like they don't think she can handle this anymore.

"Like we're thinking you've been through hell, and we're concerned about how you're doing?" he says, voice steady and even. No judgment, no anger.

"Preach," she tries, but he cuts her off.

"Like we're so thankful to have you back here, alive? Like we're amazed at how brave you are?"

Jaz stops running, suddenly unable to breathe. "Don't, please," she manages, pressing her palms to her sweaty knees, pain radiating through her chest.

"Don't what?" Preach asks. He's standing a safe distance away, not looking at her. "Don't tell you that I think you're the bravest person I've ever met?"

There are those pesky tears again.

"Nothing brave about being tortured and - and…"

She can't get the words out.

Preach shrugs. "Lotta bravery in surviving," he says. "Not to mention walking into that hotel in the first place."

She squeezes her eyes shut.

"I can't - handle what happened," she says finally, feeling vulnerable and exposed. "How is everyone else supposed to?"

"Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a little faith in your team," Preach says. She glances at him. He's looking off into the trees, far away. "And maybe the reason you can't handle it is because it's not something you can carry alone."

The tears spill over and slide down her cheeks, silently, as natural as breathing. Preach stands beside her and doesn't say a word.

-o-o-

McG's just finished cooking a strange-looking stir-fried mix of rice and beef and a mystery brown sauce when Jaz strides into the kitchen.

Her eyes are wide and panicked, and she's shaking. Dalton sets down his newspaper, sits up straighter.

He can feel the whole team doing the same.

She opens her mouth, but all that comes out is a whimper.

And all Dalton can do is sit there, waiting for whatever's about to happen.

"After," she manages, then stops, clears her throat, takes a deep breath. She plants her hands on the table, hunching over so none of them can see her face.

McG glances at him. Dalton shakes his head.

"After they grabbed me at the hotel, they hit me till I passed out," she says, and Dalton sucks in a breath, realizing what she's doing. "I think - I think you all heard that part."

They had. Dalton had sat, terrified, in the passenger seat of that van, desperate to run in and get her, wincing as the sound of Jaz's moans, and eventually screams, filled his ear.

He'd tried to talk to her. Tried to keep her calm, to tell her they were coming to get her, that it was going to be okay. He hadn't been sure if she could hear him.

And anyway - it had been a lie. They hadn't come to get her. Not for months.

He also knows that McG and Amir had had to stand in that lobby and watch those monsters beat her half to death, unable to do anything to help her. He doesn't think he could have handled that.

"I woke up in the trunk of a car with a hood over my head," she continues, voice shaking. "I didn't - I don't remember much. I didn't know where I was going."

They'd all heard that part too. After nearly an hour of complete radio silence, Jaz's panicked, pained voice, disoriented and confused, had infiltrated the safe house where they'd regrouped.

All they'd been able to do for her was tell her to stay calm.

"And then - they, um - they took me to a...a…" She's breathing hard, fighting off a panic attack, and Dalton desperately wants to tell her it's okay, she doesn't have to do this. "I woke up again in this windowless room, and they had me - I was hanging by my wrists from a chain from the ceiling," she whispers.

Amir hunches over, closes his eyes. McG looks murderously angry, and Dalton wills him to keep it together.

"Um," she says. "I, uh - they cut my - they cut my dress off and, um...they hit me with a hose. Just over and over again. I don't know for how long, but I - I couldn't keep standing, and my shoulders were…"

She takes another shuddering breath. Amir buries his face in his palms. Only Preach looks calm.

"There was blood everywhere. And - they didn't even ask me any questions, they just - they just wanted to hurt me, I guess..."

She trails off, and Dalton wonders if she'll keep going, or if maybe that's all she can take.

If that's all any of them can take.

"They threw me in a cell," she whispers eventually. "I tried to - my comm link was gone, and I tried to - but I couldn't, I just…"

Dalton has to close his eyes. The thought of her, alone and hurt and terrified, trying to call for help, for _him_ , is too much.

"Four of them came in," she says. She's really crying now, her shoulders hunching further and further, her chin practically tucked into her chest. "Two of them held me down, while one of them - I tried to fight them off, but everything hurt so much and - he pulled my pants down and…"

McG gasps and Amir sits up, stricken.

And Dalton realizes that, while he's sure they'd all suspected, they hadn't known for sure.

He hadn't known for sure until she'd told him she wasn't pregnant.

She'd left it out of her debrief. He wonders if she's even told her therapist.

"They raped me," she chokes. "All of them. Every night for weeks, and I - sometimes they would...and I wasn't sure if you, I didn't want you guys to..."

Her legs buckle beneath her, and she's sitting on the floor, practically underneath the table. No one moves.

"That's why I told them to shoot me," she says. "I just - it would have been better, and I thought…"

McG lets out a strangled, choked breath.

"So, I'm really grateful - you guys came and rescued me, and I'm - they were gonna execute me, but I..."

It's so hard to hear her like this, stuttering and scared and unsure, and nothing like the Jaz he's worked with for three years.

"I'm sorry, I can't," she says, struggling to her feet.

"Jaz," he tries hoarsely, but she won't look at him.

"I just can't."

-o-o-

She's shaking so hard she can barely stand up, her vision blurred by tears, the anxiety overwhelming.

All she can think is that she has to get out of here. She'd spent nearly an hour psyching herself up to go do this, to talk to her team, to try to let them help her, like Preach had suggested, but it's too much. It's all too much, and it's all coming back, and all she can feel is the utter panic of that moment when she'd realized they were _videotaping_ this, that they were going to send it to the DIA, that her boys were going to _see her_ like this.

She's managed to make it to her feet when McGuire's voice stops her.

"Do you remember that mission in Benin?" he asks quietly. "When we went in to rescue that exchange student who'd been kidnapped by Boko Haram?"

Jaz is frozen. She can't manage to speak, can't look at any of them.

"I remember," Preach says. "You got separated from us in the camp."

"Yeah," McG says. She can feel his eyes on her back, but she can't turn around. Can't look at their faces. "It was like, only my second or third mission. And I ended up totally alone with three lunatic religious nutjobs. They all had machetes."

"The crazy cleric," Dalton says with a small laugh. "The one who said he had bulletproof skin."

Amir laughs. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, he was like immortal or some shit," McG says, his voice growing stronger now. "Anyway, I'm standing in the middle of the fucking woods surrounded by these psychos, and one's got a machete at my neck, and they're saying a prayer, and I'm like, I'm a fucking goner. I mean, I was actually thinking about my mom, and how they were gonna tell her."

Jaz tilts her head back, knowing where this story is going. The tears are streaming down her cheeks, and she tries to push them away.

"And then all of a sudden, all three guys are down, just like that," McG says incredulously. "Just bang, bang, bang. And I'm still standing there, like, what the fuck just happened? And I look up, and Jaz is just putting her pack back on. No sweat."

"Wow," Amir says.

"Yeah," Dalton says. "I remember that."

"I was probably kind of an asshole back thing," McG says.

"Back then?" Preach snorts. Amir laughs, and Jaz can hear some sort of scuffle. She almost smiles.

"Fuck you, Preach. I'd never worked with a woman before. I didn't know how it was all supposed to go. But - I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you, Jaz."

Jaz's whole body is shaking, but she forces herself to turn around. McGuire is looking at her, his face hopeful and grief-stricken and angry and so full of _love_ that she almost can't take it.

"Me too," Preach pipes up. "Remember that time in Romania?"

"Damascus," Amir adds.

"God, Jaz has saved my ass more times than I can count," Dalton says.

"Ah, man, or in Mali?" Preach says. "I thought it was all over there."

Jaz looks around at all of them. Her team, her boys, all looking at her with the same sad, proud, worried expressions.

"What if I can't come back from this?" she manages, her voice so small she's not even sure they can hear her.

"We all know you can," Preach says. "You're the only one who doesn't believe in it."

She nods. It's hard to see past the tears.

"Can I hug you now?" McG asks, and the tension releases just a little bit.

Jaz laughs, swiping her fingers across her cheeks. She's not sure, but - she wants to try.

"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, you can."

-o-o-

"Hey," he says, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. "Hey, Jaz. Jaz, wake up."

"Please don't send it, please don't send it," she begs, choking on her tears. "No, please!"

"Jaz," he tries again, gently gripping her shoulder. She jerks away from him, nearly falling off the bed. "Hey, hey, it's me. Just me. You're home, you're safe."

She gasps for air, and he hands her a bottle of water.

"You with me?" he asks, as she takes a shaky sip.

"Yeah," she says. Her hands are trembling, and he takes the bottle back.

He sits beside her, perched on the edge of her bed. Waits until she's breathing normally again.

The darkness is warm and quiet and safe, and he looks at her hesitantly.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks.

She's silent for a long moment, her eyes glassy in the tiny sliver of light coming in from the window.

"They recorded it," she says finally, stiltedly.

He frowns. "Recorded what?"

"When they…" She swallows hard. "A few times when they came and - raped me. They would bring a camera. Record it."

He has to stifle a gasp.

"I, um...I thought that they might have been sending you the videos," she says numbly.

"No," he whispers. "They didn't - well, maybe to DIA. I don't know. But they never shared them with us. Or even told us about them. I promise."

She nods, still not looking at him. "Good."

He can't imagine what he would have done if he'd seen that.

"They sent a couple videos of, uh…" he starts, then realizes he doesn't know how to finish that sentence.

She looks at him, almost resigned.

"They were torturing you," he manages. "Hitting you. Those are the only ones I saw."

She turns away again. "I didn't want you to see those," she says hoarsely. "I never wanted you to have to see that."

"It's how we found you," he says. She raises an eyebrow, confused, and he realizes she didn't know that. "They screwed up the encryption on the last video they sent. It's how DIA was able to track the signal."

She laughs, humorlessly. Shakes her head.

They sit in comfortable silence. He can hear a heavy vehicle pass by outside, can pick up the sounds of a couple of drunk servicemen walking by, but Jaz's room is dark and still and safe.

"You should try to get some sleep," he says finally. "It's pretty early."

"Yeah," she says.

He doesn't move.

"Could you, uh...could you stay?" she asks, then immediately backpedals. "I'm sorry, that's - I shouldn't have. I'm okay, you should-"

"Yeah," he says, scooting down the bed so he's lying down. "I can stay."

She lets out a breath. "Okay," she whispers.

She lies down beside him, flat on her back, not touching him. He watches her close her eyes, watches her breathing slowly even out.

He stays several inches away from her on the small cot. But even so, he can't help but feel they've crossed a line, one they won't be able to uncross.

He closes his eyes. It doesn't matter, at least not tonight.

All that matters is that they both get some sleep.

-o-o-


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

-o-o-

Happy New Year! I'm so sorry for the delay - I'm back in New York-on-Arctic Circle and will hopefully get the next chapter up a bit faster!

Again, thank you all so much for your lovely reviews - and a particular shoutout to Rainbow Stevie! Your review was so thoughtful and amazing, and it really made my week!

This is a bit of a monster chapter! So...hope you enjoy!

-o-o-

Jaz hadn't known that off-base leave was a possibility, and the idea fills her with panic.

Dalton broaches it gently, almost like he's giving her bad news.

"Preach is leaving Monday on a transport to Ramstein," he says. "I can put in a request to get you on that, if you wanted to go home from there."

"Home?" she says blankly. "New York?"

"Yeah," he says. He's looking at her like she's a bomb about to detonate. "Only if you want, of course."

She feels dizzy and shaky, like she's just woken up from a nightmare.

Home.

They'd tried to send her back to the States several times. Deputy Director Campbell had offered her three months disability back at Bragg while she was still in the hospital. Two days after she'd been released, the head of the Omega program had called her into his office and strongly recommended that she take the three months.

She'd managed to talk him out of it. But now she wonders…

"Is this...do I get to come back?"

She tries to sound strong, tough - a soldier, just clarifying an order.

Instead she comes off like a scared little girl.

Dalton looks horrified. "Of course," he says. "Jaz - what?"

"I just - they've been trying to send me home since it happened," she manages.

"No," he says firmly. "No. That's not - I asked Patricia for this. Not just for you, for the whole team - I felt like everyone could use the break. And you don't have to go home if you don't want to. I'm not going anywhere. Neither is McG."

Jaz nods. "Yeah," she whispers. "Okay."

"We were thinking about maybe heading to Fethiye or Kas for a couple days," he suggests. "Just for a change of scenery."

Jaz thinks about laying out on the beach with the boys, surrounded by tourists. She pictures nightclubs and markets and fancy seaside restaurants.

The anxiety that she'd managed to swallow floods back with a vengeance, and for a second she can hardly breathe. She thinks of wearing a bikini or a sundress, thinks of them seeing the scars that cover her body, thinks of _Dalton_ seeing how ugly she is now…

"But we don't have to," Dalton says quickly. "We can just stay here and chill out."

She knows Dalton's staying on base for her. Knows he'll do anything she asks, and that makes her feel vaguely guilty.

But - "I don't want to be alone," she admits hesitantly.

He smiles. "You don't have to be," he promises.

-o-o-

"I do think she's starting to open up a little more," Dalton says. "I guess that's - I mean, she's told me some things, and she's finally starting to just let us _be_ there. But she's still having these terrible nightmares and she's in pain, which she won't acknowledge, and I just feel so - like, there's nothing I can really do."

His Army-mandated shrink, Corporal Brenner, sighs. "Adam, you've just spent the last half hour talking about Sergeant Khan."

Well - yeah. Dalton frowns. Unless…

Does the therapist think he has feelings for Jaz? Is he showing his hand here?

Before he can go any further, Corporal Brenner continues. "You've told me all about how beneficial you feel the leave will be for Preach, and about how you think McGuire's still feeling guilty and you don't know what to do for him."

Dalton stares at him blankly. "I don't understand."

"I wanna talk about how _you're_ feeling, Adam. How are you coping?"

"I'm fine," Dalton says quickly. Dismissively. "I'm worried about Jaz, I'm worried about my team, that's all."

Corporal Brenner doesn't say anything, and Dalton shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

He knows this is a mandatory part of the job, but he fucking hates this.

"Look, I'm - I'm really pissed, okay?" he says. "I'm - hearing about what those bastards did to her, I'm…"

He shakes his head. He doesn't know how to finish the sentence, and the whole conversation is stirring up things he doesn't want to think about.

"You're what?" the shrink presses, and Dalton loses it.

"They raped one of my team members!" he explodes, practically leaping off the couch. "They fucking - they kidnapped and tortured and _raped_ her, and I sat outside in a fucking van and didn't do a goddamn thing!"

"You think you could have stopped it?"

"No, I think I could have kept it from happening in the first place," Dalton says, his voice a deadly low growl. "I'm the CO! Everything that happens is on me. It's my responsibility. I made that call, I sent her in there, and what happened to her is on me."

"Adam-"

"No!" Dalton shouts. He's so angry he could put his fist through a wall, and he's not sure where this tidal wave of fury came from. "No! You wanna know how I'm fucking feeling? Every goddamn night I dream about those monsters hurting her, and I know that it's my fucking fault. I did this to her!"

"Adam-"

"And now I can't even fucking help her!" And suddenly his throat is tight, and his eyes are prickling and his whole body is shaking. "She's going through hell, and there's _nothing_ I can fucking do. It's like all I can do is stand there and watch it! All I fucking do is make things worse!"

He kicks the foot of the couch, hard, the impact ricocheting through his toes and into his shin. It feels good.

"And how am I supposed to go back out there and lead my team knowing that I - that I fucked up so badly, that I _fucked up_ , and Jaz ended up being gang-raped in an Iranian prison for _two months_? It was my call! I sent her in there!"

He's breathing hard now, his eyes blurry, the whole room spinning.

"Dammit!" he screams.

He collapses back onto the couch, buries his face in his hands.

Dammit.

-o-o-

Jaz sits alone at the table, nursing a cup of coffee. McG and Dalton are out on a hike, she thinks, and with the other two gone, it's quiet and peaceful in the hangar.

She'd made it through five miles on her morning run. It's still too slow, still too hard, and it still hurts like hell, but at least she's improving.

She knows that in two weeks, when their leave is over and the team is back in play, that _she_ won't be. She's a liability right now - too slow, too weak.

Too scared.

She won't admit that. Not to Dalton, not to her teammates, not to her shrink. But for the first time in her career, she's afraid.

But then - she's also afraid that if they bring someone in to replace her, even if they say it's temporary, she won't be able to get her spot back. And after everything she's gone through to earn that spot…

It's a blow she won't be able to handle.

There's a knock on the door, and she nearly spills her coffee. Standing outside is a woman she recognizes - sort of.

"Hi," the woman says. She's wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but she looks elegant and professional all the same. "I'm Hannah Rivera, I'm-"

"Yeah," Jaz says, confused. "I know who you are." She stares at her, not sure what to do. "Oh, uh, do you wanna come in?" She opens the door a little wider, gesturing vaguely into the common room. "Top and McG are out, but I can call them if you want."

"No, that's okay," Hannah says uncomfortably, hovering in the doorway. "I'm actually - since you guys are on leave, Patricia thought it might be a good time for me to come...you know, meet you in person. I'm the only one who hadn't before, since, you know, I'm pretty new still..."

Jaz frowns. Really?

"And I - I wanted to see you," she admits.

"Me?" Jaz says, suspiciously. She turns away, walks back to her coffee. "Did Director Campbell send you here to check on me?"

Hannah doesn't say anything, and Jaz bites her lip, hard. She forces herself to take a breath, to stay calm.

"You can tell Campbell I'm fine," she says harshly, not looking at Hannah. "I'm working on getting back into shape, and I'll be ready to go in a few weeks. In fact, I was just about to head to the range, so if you'll excuse me-"

"I asked to come," Hannah blurts out. "I wanted to - I thought that maybe I could help."

"Well, I'm doing fine," Jaz says, draining the last of her coffee in one gulp and heading to the sink to wash the mug. "So, thanks for checking. Sorry you wasted a trip."

"Look, I've been there," Hannah says. "I know what you're going through."

Jaz sets her jaw. Hard. "You have no idea."

"I was CIA," Hannah calls, as Jaz walks towards her room. "I was undercover with the Sonora Cartel for three years, and before that I spent two years in Morocco."

Jaz stops. Doesn't turn around. "I, um - I got burned," Hannah says, and her voice is shaking. "The cartel - they carved me up and left me for dead by the side of the road. I shouldn't have - I really shouldn't be alive now, but...here I am."

Slowly, heart pounding, Jaz manages to face her. Hannah lifts up her shirt to show her the mostly-healed scars on her stomach.

Jaz can't help it - her hand automatically goes to her own stomach, to the fresh scars criss-crossing it.

She doesn't want to do this. Doesn't want to sit here and share traumatic stories. But…

She nods toward the table.

"You want a beer?"

-o-o-

Dalton focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. His legs are burning, and his lungs are straining for oxygen, but the pain feels good, it feels clarifying and freeing and focusing.

He crests the hill and finally lets himself stop, taking in the view. The day is clear and bright and perfect, and from this vantage point, he can see what feels like the whole country.

"Dude," McG says, gasping for breath as he stumbles in behind him. "I forgot what a killer that last bit is."

"Yeah," Dalton says, eyes fixed on Turkey, stretched out below him.

He hasn't been up here in ages. Not since before Jaz was captured.

He hadn't thought about why, but now, staring out at the incredible view, he realizes - it's Jaz's favorite hike.

"You tell her we were coming up here?" McG asks, reading his mind.

Dalton shakes his head. "I didn't wanna…"

He doesn't know how to finish that sentence. He doesn't need to.

McG pulls a bottle of water out of his pack. He takes a swig, offers it to Dalton.

"You getting off base at all?" Dalton asks, handing the bottle back to his teammate.

Preach and Amir had been hesitant about leaving, but they'd both been eager to see their families, to get away from everything.

Only McG had adamantly refused to go.

Now, he shakes his head. "Nope."

"I mean to like, the islands or Istanbul or something," Dalton says, raising an eyebrow. It's unlike McGuire to waste an opportunity.

"I told you," McG says, taking another gulp of water and avoiding eye contact. "You and Jaz are here, I'm here."

Dalton studies his teammate's face. "You know it's not your fault, right?" he says.

McG doesn't look at him. "Yeah."

"McG…"

McGuire stares at the valley in the distance, biting his lip. "I knew they'd probably raped her," he says. "I think. I don't know - I guess I just didn't want to think about it."

Dalton nods. He knows the feeling.

"And I'm so _pissed_ , but you know what - my first thought was that maybe it _is_ too dangerous to have women in special forces," McG continues, his voice filled with anger and self-loathing. "Like, what kind of an asshole…"

"It doesn't make you an asshole," Dalton says. "It just makes you human."

McG shakes his head. "She's a better soldier than me," he says. "I knew pretty much from the start. But it just - it's not fair, man, you know?"

He knows. It feels horribly wrong that Jaz should have had to pay so high a price to do the job she loves. The job she was born to do.

"So, yeah," McG says. "I'm staying. I'm gonna do whatever I can to make this right."

Dalton isn't sure how any of them can make things right. But...here they are.

Trying.

-o-o-

"Is it weird?" Hannah asks. "Living with a bunch of guys all the time?"

Jaz shrugs, taking a long pull off her beer. It's only 11 AM, but - well, Hannah's been travelling for seventeen hours and doesn't really know what time zone she's in.

And Jaz - she's technically on leave, right?

And anyway...does it even matter?

"Guess I've gotten used to it," she says.

"Has it always been like this?" Hannah wonders. "Only girl in a boys club?" She giggles, like it's a private joke, and Jaz thinks she might be a little drunk. She should probably offer her some food.

"No," she says instead. "In Kandahar we had our own barracks. Girls only. It was like a big sleepover all the time."

She almost smiles at the memory. But the smile fades quickly.

She'd been so young then.

She hadn't known anything.

"You were a CST?" Hannah asks curiously. "In Kandahar."

"Yeah," Jaz says. "Still am, I guess."

She can hear Hossein asking derisively at the entrance to the safe house, as if the only reason she could possibly be there was to interview the women and distribute candy to the children. As if that's all she could possibly be good for.

And then she'd gone and proven all of his doubts and concerns completely and totally right.

She swallows the rest of her beer. Cracks open another one.

Then again, if she'd stuck to "cultural support," she wouldn't have ended up in this mess.

"How many people passed your Delta training course?" Hannah asks, and Jaz startles. For some reason, her eyes fill with tears.

"Ten," she says hoarsely.

"Out of?"

Jaz bites her lip. She knows what Hannah is doing, and she both wants it and doesn't.

"A hundred twenty."

She remembers when those results had been announced, when out of all those tough, crazy-fit alpha men, _she'd_ been one of the last ones standing.

She remembers how proud she'd felt.

Hannah hands her a tissue, and Jaz realizes that her cheeks are wet. "It's not over, you know," Hannah says.

"I know," Jaz manages, even though she's not sure she does. She wipes her nose. Clears her throat. "Why, uh - why didn't you go back in the field?" she asks, then immediately regrets it. "Sorry, that's, uh - sorry."

"No, it's okay," Hannah says, sipping her own beer. "I'd been burned. Didn't really have a choice."

Jaz nods.

"I would though," Hannah says quietly. "In a heartbeat. I miss it every day."

-o-o-

In the middle of the night, Dalton lays in Jaz's bed and watches her sleep.

She'd woken up crying an hour earlier, tears coursing down her cheeks, choking on sobs. He'd shaken her out of the dream, whispered in her ear till she'd calmed down, then soothed her back into unconsciousness.

He's still up. Keeping watch.

Everything about this is wrong and weird and dangerous - and yet he keeps coming back here, night after night after night.

They haven't talked about it. Haven't mentioned it once - not at night, and not during the day. Each night, he slips into her room and climbs into her bed as if it's totally normal - as if they've been doing this for years, as if this is how they sleep. They don't ever speak, and they don't ever touch, unless he's waking her from a nightmare.

She still wakes up screaming most nights, but he hasn't had a bad dream since they started doing this.

He wonders what his therapist would say if he told him that.

A couple of nights earlier, when Hannah had slept on their common room couch, he'd tried to go to sleep in his own bed - they can't risk having this make its way back to Campbell. But after nearly three hours of tossing and turning, he'd given up and crept into Jaz's room.

They're going to get caught, he knows. They're going to get caught, and it's going to be very, very bad, for both of them.

She whimpers in her sleep, and he gently runs his fingers down her cheek, watching as she settles down.

He shouldn't be here, he knows. But he can't bring himself to get up and leave.

-o-o-

After Hannah goes back to DC, Jaz decides it's time to get serious. The Iranians have taken so much from her, and she will not let them take anything else.

She makes a list of all the things she'll need to do for the powers that be to clear her for field work. Her shooting is coming along nicely, and while she feels absolutely atrocious running, she knows she just needs to keep pushing through. Lifting is still hellishly painful, but she's got a plan for building up worked out.

That leaves sparring.

Her hand shakes as she writes it on the list. She's always loved sparring, always loved the power, the high of beating a man twice her size.

But now...when she thinks of a man using his fists on her…

It's different, she reminds herself, before the panic can set in. This time she'll be able to defend herself. This time she'll be able to win.

Before she can overthink it, she stumbles outside, looking for Dalton. The first time will be the hardest she knows, so better to just do it, better to get it over with before-

She can't help crying out as she bumps _hard_ right into McG.

"Hey, hey," he says, grabbing her arms to steady her. "Sorry." He studies her face, frowns. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she gasps, still shaking. "I need - I was looking for Top."

"I haven't seen him," McG says, still looking at her worriedly. "You sure you're okay? Let's sit."

He guides her to the picnic table, and she realizes she's shaking.

"Jaz," he tries, once they're sitting.

"I need to go sparring," she blurts out.

"Okay," McG says, taken aback. "Uh. Now?"

"No," she says. "I mean, I don't know. I - if I'm coming back, I just need to be able to do this, so I, uh…"

She chances a look at McG. Understanding spreads across his face.

"Okay," he says slowly. "We could do that."

She nods. Tries to compose herself.

"Just - don't bite my head off, okay?" he adds hesitantly. "But are you sure you're ready?"

Jaz has to look away. "When am I gonna be _ready?_ " she whispers.

McG shakes his head. "Wish I could answer that for you, Jazzy."

Yeah.

"I want to try," she says.

McG nods slowly. Uncertainly. "No rule saying you have to be ready right this second."

"It's been a friggin' month!" she says, and is startled when McG actually laughs. "What?"

"You were in an Iranian prison for two months," he points out. "Isn't there some kind of rule about the torture to recovery time ratio?"

She stares at him incredulously, then - she can't help herself - she bursts out laughing. "Seriously, McG? Like the time to get over a break-up ratio?"

"Well, somethin' like that," he shrugs. He puts his arm around her and she relaxes against him.

It'll be easier doing this with McG than Dalton, without the weight of this unspoken _thing_ between them, and the awkward kiss on the beach, and the nights he's slept beside her on her thin cot.

And besides - she doesn't think she can ask Dalton to hit her. Not now. It's not fair to put that on him when she knows he's struggling himself.

"We can try," McG says. "If you promise we stop when it gets too much."

She's certainly not going to commit to that, but… "Yeah, okay."

"Okay," McG agrees. Neither of them move to get up. "Can we maybe try tomorrow though?"

She laughs. "Tomorrow sounds good."

Tomorrow she can be ready.

-o-o-

Dalton is surprised when, early in the morning, his secure phone rings.

"Patricia?" he says warily. "What's going on?"

"Good morning, Adam," she says. "I'm sorry to bother you when you're on leave."

"It's no trouble," he says, although his heart is pounding a little faster. "What's going on?"

"This is really more of a social call," Patricia says hesitantly, and that makes him even more nervous. He's not sure he's ever heard those words come out of her mouth before. "I actually just wanted to check in. See how you're doing."

"I'm fine," he says. A little brittle, a little harsh. "We're fine. Preach and Amir are home. And Jaz is - she's getting there."

"Hannah said she was doing all right," Patricia tells him, and Dalton wonders exactly what she means by that.

He should ask how she's doing, he knows. Try to have a conversation, like a normal person, but the last three months have stripped him of his ability to do that.

"So," Patricia says, and he's not used to hearing her like this - almost unsure. "Your team's leave is scheduled to end on the 20th."

"Yeah," he says, not sure where she's going with this.

She doesn't say anything for a long time. "Dalton, we can't put you back in the field until you're all cleared."

"Right," he says finally.

Preach and Amir and McG will be fine, he knows. Couple more sessions and they'll all be deemed fit for duty.

But Jaz is in no way ready to go back in the field. Physically or emotionally.

And neither is he.

"I just...wanted to give you the heads up on that," she says carefully. "You'll be able to keep training, but there'll be no missions assigned to your team until they think you're ready."

"Thanks, Patricia," he says woodenly.

"Adam, if you want to talk, ever…" she says.

"I appreciate that," he manages. "I'll let you go get back to work."

He hangs up the phone before she can say anything else, drops it on the desk.

What if he can't do this anymore?

-o-o-

McG throws a soft, lazy punch at her shoulder, which Jaz deflects easily - and angrily.

"Seriously McG, what the fuck is that?" she bites. She's irritated and anxious and on edge, and poor McG is about to catch the full force of that - but there's not much she can do to stop it.

"Chill, Jazzy, we're warming up," he says warily, as she nails him hard in the chest. He barely even flinches.

"Don't hold back," she spits, as his glove again grazes her arm. "Don't treat me like I'm-"

"I'm not!" he yells, finally landing a punch on her chest.

The pain stuns her, but she sucks in a breath and throws one right back. "That all you got McGuire?"

He jabs hard, the blow catching her right in the solar plexus and triggering an intense, immediate flashback.

 _She's hanging from the ceiling and there's blood dripping from her wrists from where the skin is rubbing against the chains and her feet are barely scraping the floor and her shoulders her shoulders her shoulders and blow after blow is raining down on her from every direction and oh God, it hurts, it hurts, and she's going to die here, and-_

"Jaz!" McGuire's urgent, panicked voice slips through the fog, brings her back. "Jaz, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! Can you hear me?"

The boxing ring. She's on base, in the boxing ring with McGuire.

Shit.

"Yeah," she manages, struggling to straighten up. Her stomach aches, and she knows it's not from the punch. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He looks terrified. "I'm so sorry."

Jaz throws a trembling punch at his chest. "I'm fine. Let's go."

But he's already backing up, taking off his gloves. "I think that's enough for today," he says.

"I said I'm fine!" she yells, coming at him, fists raised. How dare he?

She's not expecting him to explode. "Jesus, Jaz, what the fuck?"

She's so taken aback that she freezes.

"I'm not gonna fucking hurt you!" he screams, and he's so angry that she actually takes a step back.

She's not afraid of him, she tells herself. But…

"It's bad enough that I pushed you into a fucking lion's den, I'm not gonna fucking do it again!"

What?

All Jaz can do is stare at him. He pitches his gloves at the ground with a loud, animal scream, and she can't help flinching.

"I'm sorry," he chokes, deflating immediately. "Jaz, I'm sorry."

Her legs feel shaky and weak, and she lets them give out beneath her. After a moment, he sits down, a few feet away.

"What are you talking about?" she manages, voice hoarse and scratchy.

McG hunches over, not looking at her. "I never should have pushed for the op. All I could think about was that jackass six feet under."

Jaz lets this sink in slowly. She remembers what Amir had said that day in her therapist's office, before she'd bolted from the room.

She'd never revisited that line of conversation. Or thinking.

"Do you all - feel this way?" she asks haltingly.

McG shrugs. "I guess. Top feels pretty damn responsible."

Jaz studies her teammate - his defeated posture, the guilt etched across his face - and feels a sudden rush of pain.

She's been so busy focusing on her own trauma that she hasn't let herself think about theirs. It's been too difficult to think about what they must have been through while she was in that prison cell - and so she hasn't.

And she hasn't let herself be there for them the way they've been there for her.

She thinks about Preach's words. _Maybe the reason you can't handle what happened is because you're not supposed to do it yourself_.

"I don't blame you," Jaz says. "Any of you."

And she doesn't. Not at all.

"I never have," she says, when he doesn't say anything. "I've never even thought about it."

McG nods, not looking at her. "Guess I still blame myself," he rasps.

"I don't want you to," she says. "No matter what happened, or...or what happens next...I don't want you blaming yourself. I wanted revenge too. I wanted him dead just as badly as any of you did, and I wanted to be the one who did it, and I'm the one who made the decision to go in there.

And she's the one who missed her shot, and she's the one who was afraid to jump out the window.

She pulls off her gloves, drops them to the mat.

"And I'm the one who fucked it up."

"Jaz," he tries, but she shakes her head.

"And I'm sorry," she says, gesturing at the ring around them. "I didn't mean to…" Her eyes blur unexpectedly. "You guys are all gonna be back out there next week, and I'm not," she whispers.

McG snorts, and she frowns at him. "None of us are going to be back out anywhere next week, Jaz, none of us have been cleared."

Jaz sits up a little straighter. "They haven't cleared you?" she manages.

"Not even close," McG says. "I got shit I'm 'working through,'" he adds, using air quotes.

Jaz's stomach twists.

"And Dalton?"

McG glances at her, studying her face, as if checking to see how much she can handle. "Dalton yelled at his therapist a couple days ago," he says cautiously. "He's probably the farthest away of all of us."

Jaz stares at him.

Fuck.

-o-o-

She's on the beach again, sitting alone in her usual spot. It's a windy evening, and the waves are crashing hard against the shoreline. Jaz's ponytail whips around her neck, the tips kissing her cheeks.

He watches her from a few meters away, hidden by the dim light of dusk. She's still way too thin, but she looks stronger. Healthier.

Almost normal. Except for the way she's hugging her knees to her chest, her posture young and small and fragile and so many things he's never before associated with Jaz.

"You know I can see you staring," she grumbles without turning to look at him, and he laughs.

She's still in there somewhere.

He closes the distance between them and sits down beside her. She's got a hand pressed to her stomach, and he can't keep himself from asking.

"Everything okay?"

She keeps her eyes on the breaking waves. "You talked to McGuire."

He sighs. "Yeah," he says.

He wishes she'd come to him about this sudden need to spar - or, more accurately, to have someone hit her. She's pushing too hard too fast, and he doesn't know what to do about it.

Between the lack of sleep, the nausea that won't seem to go away, the not eating and the intense training - he's worried she's headed for a breakdown.

"I'm fine," she assures him. "I just freaked a little. Won't happen again."

"There's no rush," he tries.

"Yeah, I heard," she says. He looks at her, not understanding. "You yelled at your shrink?"

Ah.

"McG has a big mouth," he mutters.

Jaz lets out a sound that almost sounds like a laugh.

He's pissed at McG for telling her. The last thing she needs right now is to be worrying about him.

"You wanna talk about it?" she asks quietly. Hesitantly.

He shakes his head. "No."

The silence is thick. Uncomfortable.

Jaz retreats into her shell. The waves crash between them.

"You, uh - you been sleeping a little better?" he asks - to say something, to fill the silence, to turn the conversation back to her instead of him - but the question is so loaded that he immediately kicks himself.

 _Idiot_.

But she doesn't slap him, or walk away, or scream. Eyes focused on the darkening ocean, she whispers, "Yeah."

Huh.

"Should we talk about _that_?" he asks, trying to keep his voice steady.

"No," she says hoarsely.

Okay.

"Okay," he whispers.

-o-o-


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

-o-o-

Your reviews make me so happy. I don't think I could ever express that enough. Thank you thank you thank you!

-o-o-

She's not in bed when he wakes up.

He lies there for a few minutes, staring at the spot where she should be, at what he's come to think of as her side.

They've gotta stop this.

He rolls his feet onto the floor, waiting for a moment as his body adjusts to being upright.

He didn't even feel her get up.

He checks the hallway to make sure McG isn't out there, then - when he's sure the coast is clear - he heads for the common area.

He finds her in the kitchen, hunched over the counter by the coffeemaker, and his heart rate immediately settles back to normal.

It's like he can't be separated from her.

He watches her pour herself a mug - Jaz never could handle waking up without caffeine - and he smiles a little and starts towards her. "Morning," he rasps.

She startles like a bomb has dropped. The coffee pot crashes to the tile floor, and she lets out a strangled scream, diving to the ground after it.

Dalton freezes. For one, two, three seconds, he stands there, unable to move.

"Jaz?" he finally tries unsteadily.

She's crouched in a pool of broken glass, her hair a thick curtain hiding her face.

"Jaz," he whispers again, tiptoeing towards her. She's not wearing shoes, and there's glass everywhere.

"Sorry," she gasps. "I just - I didn't realize you were..."

She tries to stand, but she's shaking so badly that she can't.

"Hey, hey," he says, hysteria growing in his stomach. "Just - let me get you some shoes."

He's totally calm in the face of flying bullets and exploding vehicles and miserable odds, steady and confident when everything is going sideways and the world is spinning around him - but this does not feel like a situation he's equipped to handle.

"I'm okay, I'm just - it's fine," she says. She sounds dazed and in shock and he wishes he could see her face. "I'm sorry. Sorry."

 _Fuck_. He finds a pair of flip flops by the couch and shoves his feet into them.

"Don't move," he says - begs. "Let me help you."

He manages to get to her before she can stand, before she can walk barefoot over a puddle of hot coffee and shattered glass. She yelps as he picks her up.

"Top!"

He sets her on the couch, away from the carnage. They're both breathing hard.

He kneels in front of her. She's got her eyes closed, taking slow, deep breaths - like she's preparing to shoot.

When she finally opens her eyes, he can't help flinching at her vacant expression.

"Sorry about that," she says woodenly. "I didn't hear you come in."

"It's okay," he tries. "It's all okay. Here, let's just - sit."

But she stands up and pushes by him, legs still shaking. "I'll clean that up," she says, like a robot. "I was just going to lift. I'm gonna - I'll clean up. The coffee. And then I'm going to lift."

"Jaz, you're bleeding," he pleads, but it's like she can't even hear him.

"I'm okay," she says, pulling out the broom and dustpan. She's trembling so badly she can barely manage to sweep up any of the glass, and it's like watching a slow-motion train wreck.

She dumps the glass shards into the trash can and walks back to her room without another word.

Dalton slowly trails behind her, watching the door close.

He has no idea what just happened.

-o-o-

She tries to go to the range, but her hands are still shaking and the sounds of gunshots echoing around her is making her nauseous.

She can't go to the beach, because Dalton will find her there, and she can't face him now. She has no idea what's going on, no idea why lights seem to be flashing around her and there's a roaring in her ears and her stomach is aching and she can't feel her fingers and toes.

She needs something - anything - to stop the trembling, and so she buys a bottle of vodka at the class six and finds a quiet spot on the grass on the outskirts of base, hidden behind an igloo.

She huddles there for hours, heart pounding painfully against her ribcage, head spinning.

She doesn't understand what's happening.

-o-o-

Dalton orders enough food for about fifteen people from Jaz's favorite Indian place - anything and everything he can think of that she might actually eat. McG tries to keep the conversation light, telling an absurd story about his night out with one of the Air Force guys he spars with, but Jaz is so zoned out that he eventually just stops talking.

Dalton can only stare at her with mounting horror, watching her push her food absently around her plate, her focus drifting in and out.

McG glances at him, freaked. Dalton shakes his head.

"I was thinking of watching a movie tonight," McG tries. Jaz doesn't react. "See what's new on Netflix. You guys in?"

"Yeah," Dalton says, a little too loudly, desperate to snap Jaz out of wherever she is. "Yeah, that sounds great. Jaz?"

She looks up, startled, her eyes wide and empty.

They both stare at her.

"I'm not hungry," she says, finally. Vacant. "I'm gonna go to bed."

They watch her slow, wobbly trudge back to her room.

"What the fuck?" McG says after the door closes, his tone just shy of panicked.

"Do you think she was drunk?" Dalton manages. Fear swirls in his gut - he hasn't felt this sense of terror since she was missing.

McG's still staring at her closed door. "I thought she was getting better," he mumbles.

But Dalton shakes his head - he can't pinpoint exactly when it started, but for the last couple days he's had this sinking feeling, like something terrible is about to happen.

It's the same feeling he had sitting in the passenger seat of that van outside the Palace Hotel.

-o-o-

Jaz slips out of bed while Dalton is still sleeping, again.

It's - she checks her watch - still more than two hours before sunrise, but after the last nightmare there's no way she's going back to sleep. She's already had three bad dreams tonight, and there's no point asking for another.

She'd been sleeping better for the last week and a half, since Dalton started sharing her bed (she's not going to think about that. Not at all). But yesterday's panic attack had shattered her illusion that things were better - that everything was fine.

Last night, the dreams hadn't been about the guards or what they'd done to her. Instead, she'd dreamt about her tiny little cell, about the claustrophobia and the loneliness and the _silence_.

Somehow, that feels worse.

She slides on her running shoes, her legs physically twitching. Even with Dalton there, she can't bare to stay in the confines of her room. Not tonight.

She could wake him up, she knows. She could press her hand to his chest and shake him awake and ask him to _talk_ to her, to hold her, to distract her - anything.

But she knows he hasn't been sleeping either, and so she opts for a different solution.

Her whole body hurts as her feet pound the pavement, but she ignores it. The pain makes her stronger, makes her tougher. Her lungs burn, but she sucks in huge gulps of oxygen - she's outside, she reminds herself. She's moving. She's free.

She speeds up, pushing harder, turning onto a hilly trail. It's too dark for this, she knows - she can't see the rocky path below her in the inky blackness, can barely make out the dense trees surrounding her. But she knows this trail like the back of her hand from miles and miles and miles, and so she presses on.

For just a split second, she feels almost like her old self. Her legs are pumping and her feet are flying and she feels strong and tough and fast.

And then a sharp pain radiates out through her chest, spreading around her back and into her abdomen.

Her toe collides with a rock, and suddenly she's face first in the dirt, heart pounding so hard she's certain it's going to explode out of her chest.

She tries to get up, tries to stumble to her feet, but it feels like a knife is digging into her sternum and carving through her ribcage.

And - the more immediate problem - she can't breathe. She gasps for air, but her lungs refuse to fill.

Her head spins, spots dancing in her vision.

Desperate, she fumbles her phone out of the back pocket of her running shorts. She can't help crying out as another ripple of agony makes its way across her chest.

Maybe this is a dream, she thinks. Or maybe she's back in that room, a hose whipping across her body, her ribs shattering as fists crash down on her. Maybe the rescue was a dream, maybe this whole month back home was a sick joke.

But then she tastes dirt in her mouth, feels the gravel under her hands, and remembers where she is.

And that something is very, very wrong.

She manages to unlock her phone. Manages to hit Dalton's contact.

It takes him three long rings to answer.

"What's wrong?"

His voice soothes her, but it doesn't make it any easier to breathe.

"I need help," she manages.

And suddenly everything goes black.

-o-o-

Dalton sits at her bedside, waiting for her to wake up. He can't help but feel a sick sense of deja vu.

He'd sat in this very chair for four straight days just over a month ago, staring at her battered face and trying desperately to ease her pain and her fear.

And now - a million things have happened, and yet here they are again.

He hasn't stopped shaking since he found her - unconscious and barely breathing - in the woods. He's not sure he ever will.

Her doctor had assured him that collapsed lungs were not uncommon after the injuries Jaz had sustained - that they'd fixed everything, that she'd be fine.

She'd also told him that Jaz hadn't been cleared for running yet - or lifting, or sparring, or any of the thousand other things she'd been trying to do.

Her eyes flutter open, and he tries to smile. "Hey," he says, the word sandpaper on his dry throat.

She looks around - and panics.

"Hey, hey," he says, grabbing her hands before she can do any damage. "Jaz, Jaz, look at me. Jaz! You're okay. It's all okay. Just breathe."

He presses his palm to her forehead, and she does, finally.

She looks so small and weak and scared and it's _killing_ him.

"What happened?" she manages, wincing. Her voice is cracked and thin.

"Your lung collapsed," he says. "You were running, remember?"

She swallows. "Right," she whispers.

He should let this go, he knows. She's exhausted and hurt and terrified, and he's so relieved she's okay, but - "Your doctor says she hasn't cleared you for running," he says.

Jaz doesn't say anything, and so he keeps going. "Running, or sparring, or lifting. She said she told you a couple more weeks, actually."

"It's been fine," she mumbles.

"Fine?" he bites, incredulous. He knows he should stop, knows this is in no way going to help anything, but he can't help himself. "Your lung collapsed! While you were running, _alone_ , on a dark, isolated trail in the middle of the night!"

"I - couldn't sleep!" she manages defensively, and he's reminded of the way she tried to stand up for herself when he'd yelled at her in Iran.

And just like then, he can't seem to control himself. Can't seem to get over the fact that she'd put herself at risk, _again_.

"Then you wake me up," he growls. "You _talk_ to me."

"Like you talk to me?" she mutters, but he ignores that.

"You don't go out and do this crazy shit in the middle of the night!" he hears himself yell. As if someone else is the one doing this. "You could have died, Jaz!"

She stares at him, eyes wide and vulnerable and brimming with tears, and she might as well have punched him in the stomach.

And then she shuts down, right in front of him.

"I'm really tired," she says, monotone and empty. She rolls onto her side, away from him, and moans at the movement.

"Jaz…"

"Can you give me some space, please?" she whispers.

He closes his eyes. He's such a fucking moron.

He turns and walks out of the room.

-o-o-

Jaz jolts out of one nightmare to find herself in the middle of another.

She's in a hospital bed - again - a breathing tube in her nose, an IV in her hand, her chest on fire.

She closes her eyes. Opens them one more time.

And remembers. The middle of the night run, the desperate phone call to Dalton.

The fight.

"You awake?" McG asks, and she jumps.

He's sitting in Dalton's usual chair, iPad closed in his lap.

"Yeah," she croaks. "Can I have water?"

He pours her a cup, and holds a straw to her lips to help her drink.

"Thanks," she rasps, letting her head flop back on the pillow.

"How you feeling?" he asks.

She shrugs. "My chest hurts," she admits.

He nods sympathetically. "Doc wanted you to stay overnight for observation, but I told her I'd keep an eye on you."

She closes her eyes with relief. The thought of having to spend the night here…

"Thank you," she whispers.

They sit in silence. Jaz's chest aches, and she's pretty sure it's more than just the collapsed lung.

"I can call him if you want," McG offers, but she shakes her head. "He's not - he's just worried, Jaz."

"No," she says, but her voice cracks. "I'm fine."

She can actually hear him rolling his eyes. "Don't give me that bullshit, you're not fine. I'm not fine. Dalton's certainly not fine."

She tries to hold back the tears.

"It's fine to not be fine right now," he finishes.

She chokes out something resembling a laugh. "So the therapy's helping?" she tries to joke.

"I think it is, yeah," he says seriously.

The tears spill over, and she has to look away.

He picks up her hand, and she holds onto him like a lifeline.

-o-o-

Dalton spends the night on the floor outside Jaz's room.

McG slips in and out, every couple hours, checking to make sure she's still breathing. When she has a nightmare at 2:00 AM, he's the one who goes in and calms her down.

"Top, man, you're not doing her any good like this," McG says with a sigh, gently closing Jaz's door behind him.

Dalton nods. "I know."

"C'mon," McG says, holding out his hand to help Dalton up. "Let's all get some sleep, and you two can talk in the morning," he presses, when Dalton doesn't take it.

"I will," Dalton promises. "I'm just gonna sit out here a little longer."

McG looks like he's going to argue, but he gives in.

"Okay," he says. He grips Dalton's shoulder, then turns for his own room.

Dalton leans his head back against the wall. And stays.

-o-o-

Jaz slumps in her armchair, eyes fixed on the floor.

She usually tries to put up more of a front for her counselor, but she's too exhausted, too hurt, too beaten down.

She can feel Captain Connolly's eyes on her, but she can't bring herself to say anything. Maybe the floor will open up and swallow her, she thinks. Maybe there'll be an earthquake. Or a nuclear bomb.

Maybe her body will give out and she'll just die.

"It's been a rough couple days," Captain Connolly says, her voice so sympathetic and sad that all Jaz can do is nod. "What'd the doctor say?"

"That this happens sometimes and that I have to take it easy," Jaz croaks, barely able to get the words out. "I'm on full rest again."

"It's a setback," Captain Connolly says. "How are you feeling about that?"

It doesn't feel like a setback. It feels like a final blow. The past month, Jaz has felt like she's been fighting and clawing for every inch of progress - and now she's right back where she started.

"I don't think I can do this," Jaz mumbles.

"You don't think you can do what?"

Jaz shakes her head, frantically thumbing the tears from her eyes. "I can't - it's stupid to think I can come back. I'm never gonna - everything they did, and everything…"

She can't get the words out. She's not even sure what she's trying to say.

"I don't believe that's true," Captain Connolly says. "You might very well decide you don't want to come back, and there's nothing wrong with that. But that's a decision you have to make. You can't let the people who hurt you make it for you."

She makes it sound so easy, Jaz thinks, and it's so fucking impossible.

"If you decide that leaving the Army is what you want," she continues, leaning in closer to Jaz. "If you choose to pursue any of the thousand things that I am sure you would be wonderful at, then the Army, and your team, and everyone who cares about you will support you. But you cannot make that decision because things are tough now. You have to make that decision because it's what _you_ want."

What she wants.

What she wants is for this whole thing to have never happened. What she wants is to be back in Mongolia, riding off into the sunset with her boys and joking about movies she's never seen.

What she wants are things she can't have.

But she nods, because that's what she's supposed to do.

"I know you don't believe me right now, but I promise you that you will get through this," Captain Connolly says. "I promise you."

She's right. Jaz doesn't believe her. But she doesn't have any other options.

"Okay," Jaz whispers, barely managing to scrape the syllable out.

"So tell me what's been going on," Captain Connolly says. "Tell me about the last few days, and let's figure out how to move forward."

Jaz swallows hard.

"I thought that if I could just get back in shape, then everything would be okay," she says haltingly.

And so she tells her therapist everything. About how hard she's been pushing herself. About the disaster at the boxing ring with McG, and the bizarre incident with the coffee pot. About how Dalton's having trouble and won't let her help him. About how guilty she feels for hurting his career. About the fight yesterday.

She talks about how she can't sleep without nightmares - although she leaves out the part about Dalton sleeping in her bed - and about how sometimes she feels like she actually can't breathe in her room. She talks about the panic attacks and the vomiting, and about telling the team she was raped.

She talks and she talks and she talks - and when the hour is over, Captain Connolly tells her assistant to clear her schedule, and she keeps talking.

And when there's nothing more to say, when she's out of tears and her voice is hoarse from talking for so long, Captain Connolly smiles at her. Tells her that she's proud of her, tells her to go home and get some rest and do something nice for herself.

She writes a prescription for Paxil that Jaz tucks into the back pocket of her jeans.

She isn't sure she feels any better. If anything she feels worse. But she decides to believe Captain Connolly when she says this is a good start.

It gives her something to hold on to.

-o-o-

Jaz is at her therapy session for hours. Dalton sits on the couch, a book open on his lap - he's still on page two, and he started reading when she left.

When the door finally, finally opens, he can't help himself - he leaps off the couch and finds...Preach.

"Hi!" he says, startled. "I - I thought you weren't back till Monday."

Preach raises an eyebrow, sets down his duffel. "Seemed like I should move that up."

Dalton sighs, guilt settling in the pit of his stomach. He can't even remember what he'd written - sleep deprived, frantic with worry - in the text he'd sent yesterday morning.

"She's okay," Dalton says, collapsing back onto the couch. "Well…"

He sighs. She's not okay. She's really pretty far from okay.

He can't help looking at his watch. She's been gone for almost four hours.

Preach sits down beside him.

"She'll be okay," he says calmly. "So will you."

"I don't know," Dalton says. "I really don't know that, I think that she…"

He can't keep going. Can't give voice to the dark thoughts that have been kicking around his brain.

"I don't know what to do for her," he finally manages, and a tear spills down his cheek.

"All you can do is love her," Preach says, and Dalton gapes at him. "Come on, you think it's a secret?"

"I - no," Dalton stammers. "It's not - I - we all love her, right?" he finishes lamely.

Preach looks at him with that familiar, knowing look, and Dalton crumbles.

"I don't think it's enough," he manages.

"Of course it is," Preach says.

-o-o-

Jaz makes it back to the hangar, utterly drained. Her eyes are still blurry from all the crying, and she feels weak and shaky - but the Paxil and maybe even the talking have helped, and she feels a little bit calmer than she has for the last few days.

Or maybe she's just exhausted.

She opens the door to find Preach and Dalton on the couch. Dalton looks like he's been crying too, which stabs her in the heart, but he jumps up when she walks in.

"Hi," he says breathlessly.

"Hi," she whispers. She looks at Preach, confused.

Preach smiles at her. "Caught an earlier flight," he says with a shrug. He pushes himself up, pats Dalton on the back, then strolls across the room to kiss her head.

"See you in the AM," he says.

And then he's gone, and it's just her and Dalton.

He's staring at her with an expression on his face that she's never seen before - so full of hurt and worry and relief that it takes her breath away.

She's not sure what to do or say, not sure how to fix this, so she pulls the little orange bottle of Paxil out of her pocket. "She said this should help with the panic attacks and maybe the nightmares," she says.

Dalton lets out a breath, something between a sigh and a gasp and a sob. "Good," he manages, voice thick. Then, "Jaz…"

But she shakes her head. She can't talk anymore tonight.

"Can you just…" she tries, but it's hard to be this vulnerable, and so she closes her eyes. "Can you just hold me, please?"

And suddenly his arms are wrapped around her and her face is pressed against his chest and her head is tucked under his chin, and he's warm and strong and _safe_.

"I'm sorry," she chokes, her voice muffled by his t-shirt.

"Shhh," he whispers, nuzzling his nose against her hair.

That night she falls asleep in his arms.

-o-o-


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

-o-o-

I'm still recovering from that episode! Hope you enjoy chapter 7!

-o-o-

Jaz's heart is pounding when she wakes up, and she can literally feel the walls closing in on her.

She frantically tries to reorient herself - she's in her bed, with Dalton sleeping peacefully beside her. His body is a few inches away, but curled protectively around her, like a shield. She can feel her blanket, can see the window.

She's safe.

But she can't seem to breathe normally, and when she tries to close her eyes again, she's right back in that cell.

She has to get out of here.

Her first thought is to get her shoes on, to get the hell out of here, to run as far and as fast as she can.

But then Dalton sighs in his sleep and snuggles further into her pillow, his warm breath hitting her shoulder, and she can't do it.

"Adam," she whispers, shaking fingers grabbing a fistful of his Army t-shirt. "Top, please."

"Jaz," he murmurs, his hand sliding down her arm. Then, instantly awake, "What's wrong?"

"I need to - I need some air, I need…" she gasps. "I have to go, I have to-"

"Okay, okay," he says, practically leaping off the bed. "Shh, shh, you're okay. Let's go outside. It's okay."

She's not quite sure how they make it out to the picnic table, but the hit of cool air once they walk out the door instantly calms her down.

"You're okay," he keeps repeating, his hand skimming her back so gently she can barely feel it. "You're all right."

She takes deep breaths, slow and steady.

She's okay.

"Do you need anything?" Dalton asks, when she's breathing normally again. "A sweatshirt, or some water? Or are you hungry? I can make some eggs, or there are still some of those cookies that Preach brought back."

"Top," she whispers. "I just to need sit here."

He strokes a hand over her tangled hair. "Then let's just sit here."

-o-o-

Amir cooks a massive Lebanese dinner his first night back. Homemade hummus and fattoush, kebabs and babaganoush. He makes fresh bread, and takes out an enormous tray baklava he'd brought from home.

For the first time in months, Dalton thinks, things feel almost like normal.

Jaz sits in her usual seat, smiling and even laughing as Preach and Amir tell stories about their trips home.

God he's missed that smile.

The food is incredible, but Dalton finds himself unable to eat.

He just keeps staring at the faces of his team - his family. He's responsible for them - their safety, their lives.

When Elijah had died, he hadn't taken it so personally. Hadn't felt the same sense of guilt, the same overwhelming responsibility.

Hadn't felt like he'd sent Elijah into hell.

The thought of sending this team back out into danger, of putting their lives at risk…

When he thinks about it, about actually doing it - he's not sure he can.

"Yo, Top," McG says, laughing, but Dalton jumps, his breathing unsteady.

The whole team stares at him.

"You okay, man?" McG asks hesitantly.

He glances at Jaz - she looks worried. Sad.

He won't ruin this for her.

He musters up a smile. "Sorry, just zoned out," he says. "Amir, did I hear something about baklava?"

He doesn't think any of them are fooled, but Amir pulls out the tray of pastries, and they all go back to trying to be normal.

-o-o-

"It's good to see you all again," Captain Connolly says with a warm smile.

Jaz's heart is pounding, but she doesn't feel the urge to vomit, so - small victories. It's a little bit comforting to see that all four of her teammates look the same. Amir's leg won't stop bouncing, and McG is chewing on his fingernail. Even Preach looks ill at ease.

Dalton's sitting beside her on the couch, and she can't even let herself look at him.

"Jaz and I have been talking a lot about what she experienced during the two months she was gone," the counselor says carefully. "We've also talked about what that time must have been like for all of you. You all suffered a trauma, as a team, and I believe the way to get through this is for you to come together and support each other."

Jaz lets her eyes dart towards Dalton. He's staring at the floor.

"I know Jaz has told you all a bit about what happened while she was imprisoned, and I know she's hoping to be able to tell you more," Captain Connolly says, checking in with Jaz.

Jaz nods. She already knows Captain Connolly won't ask her to talk about it today, and that makes this whole thing easier. It's why she agreed to this session in the first place.

"But I thought it might be good to start today with your experience of those months. Just the facts - what happened while Jaz was gone."

Jaz watches as McG, Amir, and Preach exchange glances. Dalton doesn't move.

"We were in Tehran for four days," Preach says finally, looking right at Jaz. "Command was trying to find you, and we wanted to be close when they did. We couldn't move freely around the city…"

"We had to wait at the safe house," Amir finishes, when Preach trails off. "Just hoping they'd find something."

"Why did you ultimately leave?" Captain Connolly asks, and Jaz is grateful that she's the one asking the questions.

She can't help picturing the four of them in that safe house for _four days_ , out of their minds with worry, unable to do anything to help her.

She doesn't think she could have handled it, if the tables had been turned.

"They ordered us to," Amir says quietly. "There were no leads, and they felt it was too dangerous for us to stay there."

"That must have been hard," Connolly says. "Leaving Sergeant Khan behind."

"Yeah," Amir snorts, like it's a dumb question.

"We didn't know if she was alive," McG says. "For weeks."

Jaz looks at him, confused. "I thought they'd sent - videos."

McG shakes his head. "Not for three weeks," he says.

"Nineteen days," Amir corrects, and they all nod.

Jaz lets this sink in. For three weeks, they'd thought she was dead.

"Nineteen days," she whispers.

She tries to think back to what had been happening over the course of those first nineteen days, but it's a blur. She knows they'd been interrogating her - torturing her. She vaguely remembers lying on the floor of her tiny cell, bleeding and shivering and in pain, wishing her teammates would burst through the door.

At that point she'd still had hope.

"I thought - I thought they'd sent photos," she says again. The words stick in her throat.

She remembers them taking photos. She had been certain...

"They sent DIA a video after nineteen days," Amir says. His body is coiled with anger. "And a bunch of photos."

"What was in the video?" Captain Connolly asks, and Dalton tenses beside her.

Jaz realizes she's holding her breath.

"They were...beating her," Amir says. "With a cable."

"She was screaming," McG adds, haunted.

Jaz hunches over, clutches the cushions of the couch in her hands. She needs to hear this, she tells herself. They need to do this.

"But you knew at least she was alive," Connolly pushes.

"We knew she was alive," Preach says, giving her a reassuring smile. "So we figured out how to get her back."

"How'd you do that?"

"Command was working the intel, trying to figure out where she was," McG explains. "And we were here working. Top said we gotta be ready for anything."

Jaz glances at Dalton beside her. He's curled in on himself, fists clenched.

She aches to touch him.

"How did you get ready?" Connolly asks.

"We trained," Amir says. "We stayed out of service, and we focused on getting ready for a rescue."

Jaz's eyes widen. She'd just assumed they'd been working the whole time, as normal - it hadn't even occurred to her to ask about the missions she'd missed.

"We just did everything we could," Amir explains. "Top came up with a million different scenarios, and we ran all of them, over and over."

"And he was right," Preach says. "The rescue ended up being exactly what we'd planned for."

Dalton shifts uncomfortably beside her.

"Did you get any more videos?" Captain Connolly asks. "After the first one?"

"Not for another month," McG says. "The one they were able to trace, that helped us find you."

"But the whole time, you believed she was still alive," Connolly says. "You kept training, believing that you'd be able to find her."

"Top knew," Preach says. "He knew the whole time. He never gave up."

"Stop," Dalton growls, and Jaz flinches.

"Captain Dalton?" the therapist prods.

"I said stop," he says, his voice low and dangerous. He's still staring at the floor.

"What is it you want to stop?" Captain Connolly says.

Dalton takes a shaky breath, and Jaz knows he's on the verge of exploding.

"I don't want to hear this," he growls. "I don't want to hear about anything that I did, or…" he shakes his head, sets his jaw.

"Top," Jaz whispers.

"I approved the mission," he says. "I approved that mission, and I sent her in there. And that…"

He turns his face away, so she can't even see his profile.

"Nothing I did after can ever make up for that," he says finally. "Nothing."

-o-o-

He nearly jumps out of his skin when she sits down beside him, ninja-like as always.

She breathes out a laugh. "Sorry."

He shakes his head.

"Usually you're the one stalking me here," she comments, when he doesn't say anything.

"Figured I'd see what was so appealing about this spot," he says.

"Hmm."

They watch in silence as a little girl runs by, her wobbly legs kicking spastically at a soccer ball, her father chasing behind her.

They're both laughing.

"When I was in that cell," Jaz starts.

He turns to look at her, surprised.

Her eyes follow a bird soaring over the water. She takes a deep breath.

"After the first few weeks...I think it was probably around the time they sent you that video, actually…" She wraps her arms around her legs, props her chin on her knee. "After that they stopped the...the torture. And everything. And they left me in my cell. Where you found me."

He can barely breathe.

"They didn't bring me out again until that last video. So for that - I guess it was a month, um...I was just in that cell, alone."

He's afraid to make a sound, afraid to interrupt her.

"They'd slide some bread or rice under the door every day, but other than that, it was just me and the walls," she whispers. "I, um…" She shakes her head, looking up at the sky. "I thought I was going crazy."

He hadn't thought about this part. He'd been so busy obsessing over the rape and the torture and the threat of execution that he hadn't thought about what it must have been like to sit, alone in a tiny, dark cell, not knowing if you were ever going to get out.

"I started talking to Elijah," she says, and that shakes him.

"What?"

She shrugs. "I thought...he was there. I don't know. I told you, I was pretty sure I was going crazy."

She turns to him, a sad smile on her face. Her eyes are red, but there are no tears.

"And I would dream about you," she whispers.

He swallows hard. He will not cry.

"I could never hear your voice, but you were there," she says. "And there were so many things I wanted to say to you, and I thought that I'd never…"

She looks away, back to the sea. "That was the hardest part," she says hoarsely. "I've had a lot of nightmares about being raped, but the worst part of being there was waking up from those dreams and you weren't there."

He reaches for her hand, laces his fingers through hers. "I'm sorry," he chokes.

He'd promised himself he would stay strong for her, but it seems to be a lost cause.

She squeezes his hand tightly. "I'm not telling you this to - make you feel bad, or…"

She looks up at the sky, and he thinks she might not go on.

"The talking helps," she says finally. "And I need you to talk to me, so I'll feel like I can talk to you."

The tears spill over, streak down his cheeks.

Dalton hasn't cried this much since he was five-years-old.

"I didn't want to burden you," he manages.

"It's not a burden," she whispers.

"And I wanted you to focus on your recovery," he says, the tears clogging his throat. "I don't want you worrying about me."

"This is how I get better," she says.

He lets out a breath. Squeezes his eyes shut.

He lets go of her hand, then wraps his arm around her, pulling her into his side. Her body is warm against his.

"I don't know how I keep doing this," he says, his cheek nuzzled against her hair. "After what happened - I don't know how I keep leading the team."

She presses her palm to his chest. "Adam, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

He shakes his head. If it hadn't been for him, she never would have ended up in a cell in Tehran in the first place.

"I mean it," she says. "You saved my life. You didn't give up on me. Not many COs would have done that."

"I could never give up on you," he says.

She cuddles further into his side, and he holds her tighter.

-o-o-


	8. Chapter 8

Hi everyone,

I'm so sorry for the (epic) delay. I had a death in my family, and it's been a pretty rough year so far - writing has been difficult. I appreciate your patience, and of course, all your feedback and reviews and messages! I can't tell you how much it has all meant to me. They genuinely make me really, really happy. So thank you! And I hope this was worth the wait.

-o-o-

None of them have been cleared to go out in the field yet, but now that they're all technically back on duty, it's back to training.

Well, for Dalton, Preach, Amir, and McG anyway.

Jaz is still restricted to short walks and light physical therapy.

He knows it's killing her, but she actually manages a smile as the four of them leave for the morning's jump training.

"Make sure Amir doesn't land on anyone," she tries to joke, but it's half-hearted.

"You gonna be okay here?" he asks quietly, after the rest of the team has headed out to the humvee.

"Yeah," she says. When he hesitates, she reaches out and squeezes his hand. "Go. I'm fine, I promise."

He believes her. But he's still finding it difficult to be more than a room away.

That's something he's going to have to get over, he knows. If she's going to get back to her job, her life - if she's ever going back in the field like he knows she wants - then he's going to have to back off. To let her go.

He wants her back in the field so badly, back beside him, back to normal.

And he's absolutely terrified of the day that happens.

-o-o-

"Was it hard?" Captain Connolly asks. "Watching them go out to train without you?"

Jaz curls up into the corner of the couch and thinks about the question.

She's learned to deal with the therapy sessions, with the difficult and painful subjects and the talking about things she'd rather bury. She's gotten more comfortable, more honest.

But sometimes she just doesn't understand what she's feeling.

"In a way I was relieved," she admits quietly. "That I didn't have to go. I just…"

"Not ready?"

"Yeah," Jaz sighs. "I was sad too, I guess...I mean, I wanted to be out there, and I hate that…" She runs her hands through her hair. "Maybe I wanted to want to be out there."

"That makes sense," Captain Connolly says.

It doesn't to Jaz. But she shrugs and accepts this, like she's learning to accept so many things.

"How long does it take to be ready?" Jaz whispers.

Captain Connolly smiles at her. "It could take a while," she says. "Or it could be faster than you think. You could feel not ready today and wake up tomorrow morning and feel totally ready."

Jaz nods.

"Tomorrow," she says ruefully.

"Probably not tomorrow," Captain Connolly jokes. "All I'm saying is there's no way to know."

Jaz has never been able to handle uncertainty well. She wants a clear timeline - a date, a deadline. She wants to know what's going to happen.

"Have the nightmares been getting any better?" the counselor asks, and Jaz shrugs.

"I still have them every night," she says. "They've...changed though, I guess."

"What do you mean by that?"

Jaz swallows. This is not something she particularly wants to talk about. "The, um...for a long time I always dreamed about...being raped."

She tries to say it neutrally - it's just something that happened, like the beatings or the knife or the interrogations. But she knows her voice shakes.

"But the past couple weeks, I've been dreaming about...just being alone in my cell," she finishes. "And sometimes when I wake up, I just can't...I don't know. It's just...harder."

"Why do you think that is?" her shrink asks gently. "Why is dreaming about being alone more painful for you?"

A month ago she would have dodged this question. She would have lied, would have said she had no idea. Maybe she would have said that it wasn't - that spending months alone in a dark hole hadn't been such a big deal.

Instead, she finds herself talking, although she can't look at her therapist as she does. "Because being raped is something I always expected," she says, her voice cracking. "It was the price of being a woman in this job and I had accepted that. But the loneliness…"

She'd grown up unwanted and alone, and her boys - her team - had changed all that. And that love, that feeling of belonging - she'd been spoiled by it, and to have it ripped away had been more than she could handle.

"I guess I'd thought I wouldn't have to feel that way again," she finishes quietly.

The words hang in the air.

"How have you been handling it?" Captain Connolly asks, and Jaz lets out a breath, relieved that the therapist isn't going to push her to elaborate any further.

Except.

"I, um…" Honesty, right? Honesty's been helping? "Dalton's been sleeping with me," she says.

Then.

"No! I mean - not…" Shit. "He's been sleeping in my bed. Too. Just...sleeping. Like..."

She knows she's bright red, and she can't even look at her therapist.

"Okay," Captain Connolly says, and she can hear the amusement in her voice. "How did that happen?"

"I don't know," Jaz whispers, because she cannot for the life of her remember how it started. "I had a nightmare, I guess, and he...I don't know. But, I...it helps, I think?"

She's starting to feel panicky. This was not a good idea. She should not have told her therapist this.

"That's good," Captain Connolly says gently. "Just breathe, Jaz."

Jaz nods and takes a deep breath.

"Have you two talked about it?" she asks, and Jaz shakes her head. Takes another shaky breath.

There are so many things they need to talk about.

She's just afraid of where they'll all go.

-o-o-

Preach is just setting a huge bowl of fried rice on the table when Jaz walks in to the kitchen.

"I need to say something," she says abruptly, and they all freeze.

Dalton puts his pen down. Holds his breath. The last time she did this was when she'd told them…

"I know that you all feel guilty," she says, not looking at any of them. "And I don't want that."

No one knows what to say. And so for close to a minute, they all sit in stunned silence.

"Okay, look," Jaz says, finally. "It was my choice. Okay? It was my decision. I wanted to do it, and I knew the risks. I wanted him dead as badly as any of you did, and I chose to go in there. Okay?"

She finally looks at Dalton, her eyes pleading with him.

"I don't want any of you feeling responsible," she says, although she's talking to him. "And more than that - I'm not some little girl who…"

She shakes her head, and he can see the frustration welling up.

"I made the decision to do the mission, and I _need_ that, okay?" she says, her eyes flitting to Amir, then McG. "I need to own that. And I understand that you all have shit you're working through, but please, okay? Please let me have this."

She meets Dalton's eyes again.

The guilt has become a part of him, a tattoo that he doesn't know how to remove. He understands what she's saying, he does, but…

"It wasn't anyone's fault," Preach says. "We made the decision as a team, and we face the consequences as a team."

He knows that a few months ago, McG would have made fun of Preach's corniness, his sentimentality. Maybe Jaz would have joined in.

Maybe he would have too.

But now, she nods, and gives him a watery smile. "Yeah," she whispers. "Okay?"

Dalton nods. "Okay," he says.

She takes a shaky breath. "Are we having fried rice _again_?" she says, reaching for a plate.

"I thought you liked my fried rice?" Preach says, feigning offense.

"That was before I realized it was the only thing you knew how to make," Jaz ribs him.

"Seriously, Preach, didn't your wife train you better than this?" McG piles on, pulling cups out of the cabinet.

Dalton can't help the smile that breaks out across his face.

-o-o-

With the boys out training for most of the day, it's quiet around the Quonset hut. Jaz fills the empty hours with every-other-day therapy sessions, and the 45 minutes of PT she's allowed each morning.

Captain Connolly tells her that it's okay to feel bored and sad and angry and scared. That it's part of the grieving process, of the healing process. That she shouldn't try to fill every waking moment to keep the thoughts and the pain at bay.

And so, for the first time in her life, she tries to let herself just be. Tries to let the silences feel restful rather than threatening, tries to let the hours alone feel relaxing rather than agonizing.

She fails a lot. She spends a lot of time fighting off powerful, overwhelming waves of fury and terror. Sometimes she can't even face her team when they stumble through the door each evening, and sometimes she clings to them like they might slip through her fingers and disappear.

But some days, she doesn't fail. Some days she feels normal and strong and confident. Some days she feels like Sergeant Jaz Khan, and she knows that everything is going to be fine.

She tries to hold onto those days.

-o-o-

"Hey," Dalton says urgently, thumbing the tears off her cheeks. "Hey, Jaz. Jaz, wake up, okay?"

Her eyes fly open and she stares up at him, gasping for air. The pain on her face digs into his ribcage, makes his chest split open.

He will never be able to watch her in pain.

"Sorry," she gasps.

"No," he says. "No, don't apologize, please."

She curls into him, and he wraps his arms around her, her body warm and relaxed against his chest.

"When does it go away?" she whispers, and he runs his hand up and down her back.

He's never held her like this, not in all the weeks they've been sharing a tiny bed, but it feels right, and safe, and she burrows further into him, her hand sliding up his side, pressing against his back.

"I wish I could take it away for you," he murmurs, his lips millimeters from her ear. She shivers, and he can't help himself - he presses a gentle kiss to her earlobe.

"Adam," she whispers, her thumb rubbing back and forth along his bicep.

"We can't," he says, but his hands seem to have a mind of their own, and they're gliding under the tank top she's wearing, skimming up the warm, soft skin of her back.

"I know," she says, but her lips are nipping along his neck, gently making their way to his jaw, his cheek.

His lips.

He can't help moaning as she presses herself into him, as the kiss deepens, as her tongue pushes its way into his mouth.

He can't remember the last time he felt this good.

"God, Jaz," he manages, his fingers slipping beneath the waistband of her flannel pajama pants.

And suddenly there's a scream.

He startles, frozen, not sure where it came from.

"Jaz?" he whispers, but she's still kissing him, hands pressed up against his chest, her lips working along his collarbone. She doesn't even seem to have heard it.

There's another scream, and then hands are pulling at him, hard, and light floods the room, and his knees are banging against the bedframe, and _what the hell is going on_ , and his eyes are open, and _holy shit_.

Jaz is sitting up in the bed, gasping for air, panic radiating off her entire body. McGuire kneels in front of her, whispering something he can't hear.

Preach has an arm wrapped around his chest, immobilizing him. "What the…" he stammers, but there's no need to finish that sentence.

He knows exactly what happened.

Oh, God.

"Jaz," he tries, but she flinches like he's slapped her, and McGuire turns and glares at him.

"Get the hell out of here, man," he hisses, and Preach practically frog marches him out of the room.

He shoves him onto the couch, and suddenly Dalton finds himself sitting, like a little boy who's just gotten caught with a baseball and a broken window, looking up at both Preach and Amir.

And just like a little boy, he has the overpowering urge to burst into tears.

He buries his face in his hands, trying to breathe.

Shit. _Shit_.

"What happened?" Preach asks finally, his voice calm and steady and stern and full of compassion, and he knows if he didn't already that Preach must be the world's best father.

"I was having a dream," Dalton manages. "I didn't mean to, I just - I was dreaming that…"

That she wanted him. That she could be with him.

"What were you doing in her bed?" Amir demands, mystified, and Dalton sighs.

Cat's out of the bag, apparently.

"I've been...sleeping there," he admits, avoiding their eyes. "For - it's been like a month now."

When there's no response, he chances a glance. They're both staring at him, wide-eyed.

"I - she was having nightmares, and she asked me to stay one night," he says, pressing his fingers to the monster headache brewing behind his temples. "It seemed to help, for both of us, and - I don't know, I've just been…"

They're both still staring.

"Nothing's happened," he says quickly. "And tonight - God, I didn't mean to hurt her," he chokes, suddenly unable to hold it together. "I just wanted to help her."

Preach sits down beside him, puts a hand on his back. Doesn't say anything.

There's nothing really to say.

-o-o-

McG tries to calm her down, but he's not Dalton, and she can't seem to stop shaking.

"I have to get out of this room," she finally manages.

Because the walls are closing in on her, and she's alone and she's scared, and her skin is crawling and her chest is aching and the scar on her back, the one that Dalton's hands just skimmed over, is throbbing, and she can't - oh, God, she just can't…

"C'mon," McGuire says, gently, urgently, and the next thing she knows, there's a sweatshirt in her hands and she's sitting at the picnic table, trying not to remember the last time she fled out here after a nightmare.

McG doesn't say a word, just sits quietly beside her.

"He didn't hurt me," she says, because it seems like she might need to.

"I know," McG says.

"I just had a bad dream," she continues defensively. "He was just in the wrong place."

"I believe you," McG says.

"We're not sleeping together," Jaz says. "We're just…"

"Sleeping together?" McG says wryly.

Jaz has to turn away. She tucks her chin into her sweatshirt, wishing she could disappear beneath it.

"Look, I'm not one to…" McG starts, then sighs. "I think you do whatever helps, y'know?" She can feel his eyes on her. "Is it helping?"

"Yeah," she says, without even thinking about it. "But now what do we do?"

McG shrugs.

"What do you want to do?" he asks.

Jaz closes her eyes. She's so freaking tired.

She wants her job back. She wants to sleep through the night. She wants to go out on a mission with her team. She wants to go sparring with McG and not have a panic attack.

She wants to kiss Dalton and not be afraid.

-o-o-

When he comes into her room that night, Jaz is sitting on her bed, a book closed on her lap, a faraway look on her face.

"Hey," he whispers, shutting the door quietly behind him.

The emotion that flickers across her face is so clearly relief that he can't help letting out the breath he feels like he's been holding all day.

She smiles tentatively at him, and he takes that as a sign to sit on the edge of her bed.

He'd had a whole speech prepared, but now that he's here, he can't remember what he'd wanted to say.

"Top," she starts, but he shakes his head.

"When they pulled us out of Tehran," he tries, and suddenly his stomach aches all over again at the thought of that day.

He closes his eyes, not wanting to revisit those nightmarish days, not wanting to see the look on her face as he does.

"I told Patricia that I wasn't leaving without you. And I spent three days telling her that…" he trails off, his heart hammering in his chest. "But - we had nothing. No intel, no clues, and it was getting too dangerous to stay there. And Patricia convinced me that - that the whole team would be killed if we didn't get out."

He glances up at her - she's barely breathing, frozen in place.

"When we left - I was leaving you," he whispers. "That's what it felt like, anyway. I knew what they were doing to you, and I knew they were going to kill you, or maybe that you were already dead, and I walked away. I have spent my whole career saving people, but when it came down to it, I couldn't..."

He couldn't do it. When it really mattered, he'd failed.

"Adam," she tries, but he shakes his head.

"I'm not - I know you don't blame me," he says. "And I'm not trying to - what I'm saying is that it was the worst day of my life. Leaving you."

He digs his fingernails into his palms, tries to keep breathing. He needs to say this. She needs to hear it. They need to - do this.

"I don't - I don't know if it would have been the same," he says haltingly. "For anyone else."

He works up the courage to meet her eyes, and they're full of understanding.

He can't tell her that he loves her. He can't say the words. It's not fair to her, and it's not appropriate, and it's been so long since he's said those words out loud that he can't even imagine how they would feel. What they would sound like.

So this is the best he can do. And he knows she understands that.

"I would never do anything to hurt you," he says quickly. "Or your career, or anything. Never."

"I know," she whispers, and he can see she's on the verge of tears. "Top, I know that."

"Good," he manages. "I - good, yeah."

They sit in silence. He feels utterly drained - by the day, by the year, by life. Jaz is taking deep, shaky breaths, trying to pull herself together, and he doesn't look at her, doesn't say anything else.

"I hope you know that - me too," she whispers.

He feels himself smile. Just a little.

He can't. They can't. He's her commanding officer, and she's a woman who has fought and clawed her way into this job, and besides, neither of them are in any way ready to start a relationship right now.

He holds out his hand, and she laces her fingers through his.

And it's enough. For now.

-o-o-


End file.
